The Beginning (The Life 1)

“What about with us? Would you be uncomfortable hanging out with us?”

“Oh no.” I rushed to assure them, feeling a bit embarrassed at the needy haste with which I’d answered. I’m not allowed to show my longing and hunger for friendship, another one of Becky’s dictates. As she’d said, she didn’t want outsiders painting her as the evil stepmother if they saw my long face.

This all sounds like a poorly written tabloid story, and if I weren’t living it, I would find it hard to believe myself that a grown woman would have it out for a child just because she refused to call her mom. My refusal to replace my deceased mother with her is the bone of contention she holds onto to this day and is also the thing that my dad resents me for.

I have no idea why he’d want that; all it does is make me doubt his love for my mom, that he ever truly loved her. How could he want me, her only child, to forget her, to put aside my memories of her as though she never existed? Now wasn’t the time to think about such things, though. For now, I wanted to enjoy this time here, which I’m pretty sure will be the last.

“So, what should we do for the next couple of hours?” One of the twins smiled and popped a grape into her mouth. “Why don’t we show you around?” I didn’t want to ask, but I was dying to see this masterpiece. Those who’ve been privileged to pass through the gates have done nothing but rave over the years, and I can’t deny that I’ve always wanted to see what all the fuss is about.

“I’d like that.”

“Great, let’s get Gabriel to join us; he’s better at that stuff.” The bottom fell out. I’d been doing a pretty good job of ignoring the fact that he was somewhere in this mausoleum they call a house, though I felt a prickling down my spine the whole time we’d been here as if he were somewhere watching. Of course, I know it’s just wishful thinking; I mean, why would he?

Even though he’d come to my rescue a time or two, I didn’t get the feeling that he had any real interest, especially when he disappeared as soon as we got here, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from me.

GABRIEL

Does she know that she wears her thoughts on her face? I’ve just watched a gamut of emotions flash across it from fear to excitement, then confusion and back again. Now she’s looking uncertain. I can’t think about that now, though, because Rosa had just thrown me under the bus.

Since when am I good at showing people around? She’s never seen me do that shit because it never happened. I could drive a truck through the obvious opening she just left, but Gianna didn’t seem to notice what they were up to. She’d taken the news of their deception pretty well, I’d been afraid of her reaction when she found out the truth, but it was the best I could come up with, with such short notice.

There’s still a lot for me to learn, but from what I know so far, she has no friends, like not one, not even the outcasts go near her, and from what I heard, she has no one outside of school. Usually, I would look for the fault in her; I mean, if everyone avoids you like the plague, there must be something wrong with you. I couldn’t use myself as a measure since I’m usually the one avoiding those trying to get close to me, but seeing her attacked not once but twice was more than enough to convince me that she wasn’t the one at fault.

I’m still working on what the hell could be going on with her in that house, where I’ve come to believe the problem lies, and I’ve come up with a way to get to the bottom of it. That’s one of the reasons I needed her here. I can’t very well carry out my plans at school where there are too many eyes and too many ways to fuck up. What I plan to do with what I find is a whole other issue I have yet to decide, but the sooner I deal with her shit, the sooner I can get back to mine.

It’s been two days now since I gave any attention to my daily plotting session. I can only do that shit while I’m at school because I’m pretty sure Pop has eyes all over the place. I don’t think that he’d go through my shit, but the man is overprotective as hell. I don’t blame him for going the extra mile to look over his family, but it messes with my shit.