He handed me a drink from the cooler next to him. “Anyone giving you a hard time?”
“Nah.” I shrugged when he didn’t look convinced. “Nothing more than usual.”
He shot me a pitying look, opened his mouth to speak, and then appeared to think better of it. There was nothing he could say. Everyone knew I would end up at the bottom of the pack ladder, and if I didn’t think of something soon, I’d be shipped off as soon as I turned eighteen.
I’d been away before. I knew what was out there. No matter how many people picked on me in Dublin, I was far safer with the Evans family than without them. I desperately needed to find a way to make myself useful enough to stay.
Chapter 3
Margo
I lookedat the cover of the magazine on my dresser and picked up a tube of mascara. Dark eyebrows and lashes were in fashion, and my white, almost non-existent hairs were so not. Had they ever been? I went at my eyelashes with a grim determination until they darkened. It was the quickest way to make me look more normal. I glanced at the photoshopped picture again. Flawless bronze skin, full-on contouring, and overlined lips with a perfect pout. I poked at an ancient acne scar on my temple. It might as well have been a flashing sign against my chalky skin. I’d never look like the picture, no matter how hard I tried.
Back home, my best friend and I had tried to dye my hair, first in pastels, and then when that failed, neons. But my hair refused to take the colour. And the mascara would inevitably flake off and make me look like a panda before I got home. I failed hard at everything Girl.
I gave up on makeup, plaited my hair, and then hid under a beanie and a long military coat. “Well, now I just look like a boy,” I told my lovebirds who predictably ignored me.
I checked my bag for the fifth time that morning and the clock for the seventeenth. My stomach turned. Almost time to go.
A soft knock on my bedroom door made me jump. I let my phone slip out of my hands and onto the floor. Wincing at the ever widening old cracks on the screen, I shoved the phone in my pocket then opened the door to my dad.
He frowned at my appearance. “Bit early, Margo.”
“Oh.” I made a face. “I don’t want to be late.”
“Nervous?”
I shook my head then nodded. “I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never done this before. I can’t even remember my first day at school back home, but I already knew everyone by then. What if I get lost or don’t know where to go or what if I’m, like, two years behind everyone else, and they think I’m a loser from the sticks who can’t—”
He gripped my shoulders. “You’re going to do great. I know it.”
My laugh sounded shrill and nervous. “How bad can it go, right?” I really hoped I hadn’t just jinxed myself.
“How about I pick you up after school, and we go get a bite to eat together? We can take a good look around the place.”
I nodded, barely hearing him. I was still inside a nightmare of my own making, one in which everything that could go wrong would.
Mam had already left for work on foot, so I sat in the kitchen while Dad had breakfast, drumming my fingers on the table as anxiety gripped me completely.
Dad pushed away his plate. “Even I’m nervous now.”
“Can we just go?” I asked. “Get this over and done with?”
He sighed before reluctantly agreeing. It was still dark outside, but the sky had brightened some by the time we reached the school. Dad escorted me inside to the office to sort out the paperwork. We had to fill out more forms, sign lists of rules that we were to agree to be bound by, and wait for somebody to find me a class list. It was sort of a blur, and time passed quickly.
When the bell rang yet again, Dad looked at the vice-principal. “I can do the rest if you don’t need Margo for anything else. You could take her to her next class.”
The woman looked as though she had just taken a bite of something rancid. “I’m sure she’ll find her way. It’s a small school, and all of the rooms are numbered.”
I stood. “I’ll figure it out. See you later, Dad.”
Finding the right classroom wasn’t hard, but the classes had already started by the time I arrived. I opened the door and immediately got stage fright.
The teacher stared at me. “What?”
“Um, I’m new. Started today. I think I’m supposed to be here.”
Uninterested gazes looked in my direction then drifted away again. “You’re late,” the teacher said dismissively. “Take a seat.”