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That’s enough to cool their tempers. However, neither Sydney nor Brooke seems all that upset about Jordan passing away so suddenly. A fact only confirmed by their next interaction.

“Jordan always did like to steal everyone else’s thunder. Just like her to die the week we’re having this reunion,” Sydney says to which Brooke nods in agreement.

“I saw the messages in our group chat about Jordan this morning, but even if I hadn’t, I would’ve heard it on the radio on my drive over here,” Brooke explains. “I couldn’t find a single station that wasn’t talking about her. Doug even texted me to say ACC has been covering her death all morning. She must be pissed she’s missing out on all the media attention. If she were still alive, she’d be on cloud nine.”

“Instead, she’s probably arguing with Satan himself right now, demanding VIP treatment,” Amber piles on with a giggle.

As the trio begins to laugh, taking turns in saying the worst things about their dead friend, my upper lip curls in disgust.

If I thought that the Reds would have matured with time, that they would have rectified their toxic ways, then I was dead wrong.

Jordan was their friend. Her body isn’t even in the ground yet, and here they are, picking her apart.

With friends like these, who needs fucking enemies?

“Some things never change,” Sienna snarls next to me, having witnessed the same scene I have.

I open my mouth to agree, but the words die on my tongue as Delaney, Misty, and the queen bee herself, Peyton, walk into the garden.

Squeals and hugs burst out as all six women rush toward each other, leaving the rest of us as mere bystanders to their joyous reunion.

I breathe in through my nose as I watch Peyton air-kiss her friends, Misty and Delaney right at her side, her truest sidekicks and cruelest loyal servants

I only realize my hand has balled into a fist when my nails begin to bite into my palm through my gloves. I ditch my glass just to force my fingers open, flexing them against the lingering sting.

“Are you all right?” Sienna asks with concern.

“Hand me the mimosa,” I reply, already grabbing her flute.

Sienna doesn’t say anything and lets me chug the whole thing down. Unfortunately, the sweet liquor does nothing to take the bad taste out of my mouth from having to witness the Reds in all their grandeur.

“I need air,” I announce, tugging at my neck scarf.

“We’re outside,” Sienna reminds me.

“Then I need… I need…”

I tug harder at the scarf, but it does nothing to loosen the invisible grip around my throat. I glance frantically between the tent, the garden, and the house, searching for something I can’t even name. An exit. A hiding place. Somewhere they aren’t.

“I need to get out of here.”

“Hold it in,” Sienna orders. “Hold all of it in. Don’t let them see that they still get to you. Don’t let them think they’ve won.”

She’s right. After all, isn’t that one of the reasons I came to Fairhope in the first place? To show them that they didn’t break me? But now that I’m standing this close to them, I’m not so sure they didn’t. Actually, I know they did. I just thought I’d done a pretty good job of gluing all the broken pieces back together again.

Looks like I missed a few.

And I know exactly which ones.

Chapter 12

Fairhope, April 27th, 2013

Whoever said that teenagers nowadays have a short attention span obviously didn’t live in Fairhope. No one forgets anything around here, much less the outing of my mother’s law-breaking ways.

It’s been months since Peyton sent those pictures to the entire student body, and yet I still find rolled-up dollar bills in my locker with fake phone numbers telling me that they want my services. If that humiliation wasn’t bad enough, then my father confirming that Mom sold her body to feed her habit was more than I could take.

Maybe I had been naive all these years to never consider such a thing. I mean, Mom couldn’t hold a job to save her life. Not when all her energy went to getting her next fix. I guess I always thought the money and things she stole from Dad and me to sell had been enough to maintain her addiction. But that was stupid. Dad and I barely had two nickels to rub together, and the stuff we owned wasn’t worth much more. Of course she found other ways to get what she wanted. It just took Peyton showing me her mug shot for it all to sink in.