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After receiving texts and missing calls from her all day, I finally texted Izzy back an hour ago, but when my cell beeps, I know it’s another message from her.
Opening up the text app, I read the message thread.
Me
I’m fine, please stop calling and texting. I’m not ready to come back to school yet.
Izabella
Where are you?
Let me come to you.
Or you can come to us. Gulliver has plenty of spare bedrooms you could stay in.
I don’t want you to be alone.
Are you at the house?
Have you spoken to Mom and Dad?
Hawthorn is worried about you too. What happened between you guys?
Clicking out of the message thread with her without replying, I open up the messages between me and Hawthorn again and stare at his words.
Hawthorn
Come to the boat, now. You’re mine until it’s over… and it’s not over yet.
His demand is so alluring. Hawthorn wants me. I don’t know why, but he wants me, and right now, when I don’t have a home, when I’ve alienated my parents and my entire life focus is gone, his wanting me is a lifeline that feels like a siren call.
But the temptation also feels like I could drown in it. The biggest part of me wants to give myself over to him, but when he inevitably walks away, there’ll be nothing of me left. My life is so empty right now, and I’m terrified that I could let Hawthorn’s attention fill the gaping hole that’s left now that I’m not scheming and manipulating. But no matter what, I can’t allow a boy to become my everything.
I need to make some choices and grow the fuck up. Izzy left our parents’ house covered in bruises and scared and became this badass, kicking ass and taking names, but I’m not like her. I’m not strong, and I have no idea what to do. My trust fund is large enough that I don’t have to worry about money, but do I buy a house, an apartment, or do I just stay at this hotel until I graduate and go to college? I’m so used to having my days, my weeks, and my life planned out for me, and now that all those plans have fallen by the wayside, I don’t know what to do.
Izzy has been relentlessly trying to speak to me, but apart from a couple of texts from Hawthorn, no one else has reached out to me to check if I’m okay. I’m not dumb, I know my friends were only interested in me because I was going to be worth a fortune, but it still stings a little to be faced with the reality that none of them even care enough to check I’m still alive. I’m not surprised that my parents haven’t called to check on me, but despite knowing I was simply a pawn to be used to gain access to my inheritance, I’ve still almost called my mom three times today. I’ve been so conditioned to ask her permission for everything beyond breathing that I’m not sure if I know how to exist without her stifling control.
Izabella would tell me this is my opportunity to discover who I am and figure out what I want to do, but I’m not her. She’s brave, and I’m weak. If this will has taught us both nothing else, it’s the fact that when faced with life-altering decisions, she will do the right thing, and I’ll just do as I’m told.
The thought of going back to Green Acres Academy is almost unbearable. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to cope with my fall from grace, and I know I’m not strong enough to face the sneering retribution from all the people I’ve disregarded simply because my mom told me they should remain beneath my notice.
There are other prep schools in the city and hundreds across the States. I could enroll somewhere else, where no one knows who I am, where my surname isn’t recognized and isn’t important. I could finish out my senior year and then go to college. But if I’m being really honest with myself, despite the stack of college acceptance letters that have started to arrive, I don’t think I can cope with the level of work an Ivy League will expect without my sister to do it for me. Apart from a couple of electives, Izzy has taken the bulk of my core classes for me for years, she’s the smart one, not me.
Izabella would help me if I asked her to—she’s simply too nice to say no—but isn’t that what started all this mess—her coming to my aid because I wasn’t smart enough to succeed on my own? No. I’ve already fucked over my twin enough, this is my problem, and I need to grow a pair and figure out how to stand on my own two feet.
As much as I want to, I can’t stay in this bed forever, whining over how shitty my life is. It’s time to pretend to be my badass sister. Tomorrow I need to go back to school. I’m Penelope Rhodes, and if nothing else, I know how to act like I’m the smartest person in the room.
* * *
It’s harder than you’d expect to find a prep school uniform on short notice, although not impossible, if you throw enough money at the problem. I could go home and pack a case. I’ve no doubt my parents have already left. By now, they’re probably on a beach somewhere avoiding the scandal I caused when I broke the will and my mom attacked me in a room full of high society, but I still don’t plan on going back home to find out. That house is full of every bad decision I’ve ever made, and I’m nowhere near ready to handle that particular trip down memory lane yet.
As I smooth the barely visible creases out of my GAA uniform, I feel a little more centered than I did yesterday. When I was ordering DoorDash to pick up supplies for me last night, I bought a hair straightener because having poker-straight hair is part of the look Mom chose for me, and she’s never allowed me to deviate from the style. But as I stood in the bathroom this morning, straightener in hand, something stopped me from falling back on my classic look. Maybe it’s that I don’t feel like the same person I was three days ago. Maybe it was my backbone clicking back into place and reminding me that Mom doesn’t get to pick who I am and what I look like anymore. But either way, I made the choice to make a change.
Lifting my chin, I stare at my reflection in the mirror, twisting from side to side to admire the halo braid that curves around my head and the loose strands that fall in waves on either side of my face. A smile that is oddly unfamiliar spreads across my lips. I look different, and not just because of how I did my hair.
Buttoning up my blazer, I pull in a breath, then run my eyes over my reflection, checking everything is perfect the same way I’ve done every day for years. My feet are clad in black Mary Janes, my white uniform socks are shorter than I usually wear, finishing at the ankles and leaving my legs on display. My skirt is the same plaid I’ve worn for years, but it’s shorter than I usually wear, ending mid-thigh instead of the conservative inch above my knee I’m used to wearing.
I look the same as normal, but somehow different too. Mom used to have my uniform tailored, and although everything I’m wearing fits, it doesn’t feel the same. My shirt seems to cling in a way that makes me look skinny, and the length of the skirt seems almost provocative with the ankle socks and heels. Combined with the different hair and makeup, I feel…different.
