Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
I grabbed a bottle of water and began the arduous task of finding a place to sit.
Every pair of eyes in the dining hall watched me waffle over where to go. Yet no one offered a seat at their table. Not even Nevada and her redheaded sidekick. They looked away as I approached. Whatever. I didn’t want to be friends with them, either. I just wanted to eat my lunch without having to introduce myself to another group.
“What are you doing, Keaton’s sister?” Nevada asked as I took a seat across from her.
“Don’t be an asshole. You know my name.” I tucked into my salad.
“Everyone gets a nickname. That’s how this works.” She looked at something behind me and raised her voice. “Isn’t that right, Droopy Daisy?”
I twisted in the chair as the girl in question entered the dining hall. Her shoulders drooped. Her hair hung in stringy brown strands. But it was her disfigured face that had likely earned her the mean nickname.
Skin sagged from her eye sockets, pulling the outer corners of her eyelids downward as if there were no bones to hold the flesh of her cheeks in place. At first glance, I wondered if her face had been melted in a fire. But her misshapen mouth appeared to have no lower jaw or, at least, a severely underdeveloped one.
The deformity didn’t obscure her expression, though. If anything, her twisted features underscored the infuriation and hurt that burned in her eyes.
If I were a good person, I would lay into Nevada for being a nasty bitch and find a different table to finish my lunch. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t afford to make enemies with these girls. Not until I secured my exit out of here.
So I kept my disapproval to myself and inhaled my food.
“Droopy Daisy is the big sister on your floor.” Nevada nibbled on a carrot, studying me. “Watch your back. She’ll rat you out for using more than two squares of toilet paper.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m Alice.” The redhead leaned back and tapped her nails on the table. “You owe me a box of cookies.”
Shit. I hadn’t thought about who I might’ve stolen from this morning before Mass. But given the amount of food she had stashed in her room, she wasn’t hurting for cookies.
“I’ll pay you back.” I shrugged.
“Pay me back by introducing me to your brother Winston.”
Gross. “He’s twice your age.”
“Exactly. And he’s fucking gorgeous.”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“Tell him to visit you without the girlfriend. I’ll take care of the rest.”
She didn’t have a chance in hell with Winny. He was obsessed with his little plaything, Ash Elliott, and far too busy to drive to Maine. If anyone visited me, it would be Keaton.
I wasn’t about to share any of that with her. So I stood and grabbed the uneaten bread off my plate. “I have to get going. See you guys later.”
According to the schedule posted on the wall, I had thirty minutes to kill. Fresh air and sunlight drew me outside, and before I knew it, I was strolling off the paved path and through a thick copse of shade trees.
In about a month, Maine would be as cold as the North Pole. But today, the autumn air felt glorious, the canopy of leaves afire in hues of golds and reds. It made me crave cider and fuzzy blankets and home.
There were so many things I didn’t like about Bishop’s Landing, such as the pretentious parties and fake smiles. But I missed my brothers and sisters, the comfort in familiarity, and my freedom.
Here, I was imprisoned by a wall, an actual electric fence. The cage felt smaller and smaller by the hour, closing in and making it hard to breathe.
If I went along with this, if I accepted this school and finished the year here, what then?
My mother would offer up her virgin princess like a sacrifice to the wealthiest, most powerful family she could find, thereby transferring control over my life to yet another asshole.
If I didn’t take hold of my future now, I never would.
A dirt trail cut through the grove. I nibbled on the crusty bread and strolled along, lost in thought. Until movement caught my eye.
Something wriggled in the leaf litter. I held still, squinting, and spotted a narrow white face. No, two faces.
Two tiny gray fur balls, about five inches long, clung to a fallen branch. With black beady eyes, Mickey Mouse ears, and rat-like tails, they were the cutest opossums I’d ever seen.
“Awww! Are you littermates?” I searched the area for more and realized they were likely orphaned.
They were too young, too wobbly on their little toes. Opossums this small lived in their mother’s pouch. I didn’t know how they would survive the winter out here, let alone the next few days without food and shelter.