Bryan argues, “I can’t leave the stand and Jeremy is on a break.”
Emory rolls his eyes, and I wonder if maybe he hasn’t been spending a bit too much time around Reynolds. He’s putting on a really convincing act. “My sister will wait here and just tell everyone you’ll be right back. Trust me, that’s a better option than my dad being the one to see that scratch first.”
I freeze.
Did he just drag me into this?
Bryan assesses me for a long moment, fingers carding through the papers on the clipboard, and must decide that I look trustworthy. Which, of course, I am. I’m just innocent little Baby V. Nothing to see here but an awkward thirteen-year-old giving her brother the stink-eye. Bryan mutters a curse under his breath but concedes to my worryingly persuasive brother. I’m left standing by the curb, arms crossed, as my brother walks toward the parking lot. He turns back to wink at me.
Before I can react, Reynolds darts out of the bushes, his dress shirt wrinkled and his club-mandated tie askew. He brushes past me without any acknowledgment, ducking behind the valet stand to run his finger down the clipboard. I watch uselessly as a slow, wicked smile appears on his face. A heartbeat later, he’s snatched a set of keys bearing a Porsche logo from the board at his back.
“This is a bad idea,” I say, wringing my hands to stop them from shaking. “I don’t want you guys to get in trouble.”
Every time Emory does something, my parents clamp down even more, and I’m usually the one who gets the brunt of their frustrations. It’s not fair. It’s not right. But that’s the way it’s always been.
Reynolds pauses just then, staring pensively at the keys in his hand, and for a moment I think maybe—just maybe—he’ll actually listen to me. Instead, he turns his mischievous smile, dimples and all, right on me. “You should come with me.”
I blink at him, gulping. “What?”
“Come on, Baby V.” He reaches out, grazing the soft knuckle of a curled forefinger beneath my chin. I’m momentarily struck speechless. Breathless. Senseless. He cocks his head, watching me. “Aren’t you tired of being the good girl who watches us have all the fun? Come with me, you’ll have a blast.” He holds out his hand, gesturing with a nod toward the parking lot. “It’s just one joyride, it’ll be fine.”
Through the thick fog of my screeching internal ‘oh my god, he touched me’, I’m only distantly aware of what he’s doing. Reynolds wants me, at the very least, out of the way. And at the very most… complicit. Reynolds may be a thief and a troublemaker, but he isn’t dumb. I’m a witness now, a liability. What better way to shut me up than to make me an accomplice?
Even more distant is the awareness that Reynolds must know how hard it is for me to say no to him. It always has been, and it certainly isn’t the first time he’s leveled me with one of those dimpled grins and found a convenient blind eye to his and my brother’s antics.
It is, however,the first time he’s asked me to go along for the ride.
I look at his outstretched hand, at long fingers that have picked pockets and locks and pretty high school girls, and I know it’s not real, but this is Reynolds.
This is Reynolds picking me.
My heart bangs wildly as I slip my hand into his, finally meeting his gaze, and I wonder if I look as panicked and unhinged as I feel. “Okay.”
“Sweet.” He grasps my hand and turns, leading me away, and I follow without question.
Because the thing about Reynolds McAllister is that even when he’s doing bad things—even if being nice to me is merely a means to an end—he still has a way of making me feel like I’m special.
Later—after the sirens and the pain and the tears—I’ll look back on this moment and remember how it all began. I’ll remember the way his smile makes me go all soft inside, and I’ll remember the way he laughs—low and breathless—when I stumble over a dip in the asphalt. I’ll remember the way my heart feels like a hummingbird when he squeezes my hand, and feeling scared and thrilled and like I’m finally a part of something. I’ll remember all of it, and I’ll wonder how I ever thought the beginning of my own personal nightmare had ever felt like a fairytale.
In my periphery, I see a firefly hovering just within reach.
I walk faster.
1
Vandy
You’d never know from looking at me that I’m broken.
In fact, on the surface, I’m probably quite enviable. I’ve got long, blonde hair that isn’t too straight, nor too curly. My teeth are perfect, the result of extensive adolescent orthodontia. My nose is thin and aligned. More than once my eyes have been described as ‘strikingly blue’, and spoken with tones of wonderment. I have a nice body. I know I look good in a one-piece bathing suit, when my scars are hidden. Once, over the summer, I caught the lifeguard checking me out by the pool. Even the basic school uniform is flattering on my figure. So yeah, on the outside—at least the visible parts—Vandy Hall is the kind of seventeen-year-old most girls want to be.
At least, I am until I walk.
There was a time during freshman and sophomore years that I used a cane, but I’ve gotten well enough to not need it. Even so, my limp is severe enough to draw stares. And if people could see past my normal exterior, and even further, past the stilted way I walk, all the way deep into the heart of me? It’s ugliness, all the way down.
People somehow see it, regardless. I inspect my face in the mirror and try to find out how, but I don’t really need to wonder.
I’m not just the girl who survived the accident. I’m the girl with the scars. The girl with a secret. The quiet girl with the dead eyes who has to be treated ever-so-carefully.