Radiance (Riley Bloom 1)

Some kind of freak.

Even though they were all striving to appear calm and thoughtful and friendly, as though they had all the time in the world for me to get my bearings and give them the big reveal of how I spent my twelve, pathetically short, years, I wasn’t fooled for a second.

These people knew everything. It was all in the book. They just wanted to hear it from me. They wanted me to own up to it.

An afterlife test.

That’s what this was.

There was no doubt in my mind.

“It’s true that we know everything,” Aurora confided, confirming what I’d already guessed. “But you have nothing to worry about, there’s no judgment here. We just want to give you a chance to explain it, that’s all. To tell us what motivated you to make the choices you did. We’re interested in your input, to hear your side of things, so we can best decide where to place you.”

I squinted, my gaze moving over them, all of them, but they were too good at this, too well practiced, and I couldn’t glean even the slightest clue to what she might’ve meant by that.

“Everyone has a place,” Celia said, her tiny hands smoothing the sleeves of her gown. “It is our task to find yours,” she added, as though that should somehow mean something, as though that should make perfect sense to a newbie like me.

I shook my head, feeling completely annoyed, upset, and, well, mostly annoyed, saying, “Listen, I’m not really all that into this, so I’m wondering if we could maybe, um, catch up another time or something. I mean, since you already know all there is to know, I don’t really see the point of all this. And, the truth is, I feel a little creeped out having to stand here on this stage. But fine, if you insist on knowing, then, okay, I guess the top two items on my short list of sins would probably be: One, sometimes, on certain occasions, I used to hog the mic when I played Rock Band on the Wii with my friends—” I stopped, hearing my own voice in my head saying, Really? You’re seriously going to lie about that? Here, of all places? And clearing my throat when I added, “Um, okay, I might’ve actually hogged it more than sometimes, but that’s only because I was practicing to go on American Idol, which, you probably don’t know, but it’s this really popular show on—” I shook my head, knowing I needed to keep it moving if I wanted to get out of there anytime soon.

“So, anyway, what else? Okay, well, I guess number two would be that one time, back in fourth grade, when we had that substitute teacher and someone, er, I mean I, changed the seating chart all around, so that all the girls had boy’s names and all the boys had girl’s names—but, again, I’d like to make it clear that there were extenuating circumstances in that case too. For starters, it wasn’t entirely my idea. In fact, it wasn’t my idea at all. But anyway, the only reason I even agreed to go along with it is because Felicia Hawkins dared me. And just in case you’re unfamiliar with her, well, she is majorly mean. Seriously, she was one of the meanest, nastiest, snobbiest kids in the school, and, by the way, that includes all of the fifth and sixth graders too. So, with that in mind, I think it’s fair to say that I really had no choice but to prove that I wasn’t the least bit afraid of her, the substitute, or anyone else. Otherwise she would’ve been all over me for the rest of the year, if not longer. So, if anyone should be pun

ished Here, it’s Felicia Hawkins, not me. But nooo, she’s still living, still breathing, and last I saw, still terrorizing her classmates, with no consequences whatsoever, while I’m the one who gets stuck Here, standing on some dumb stage, in some dumb room, defending a few dumb acts. I mean, seriously, how unfair is that?”

I stared at them, all flushed and red faced, but even though the question wasn’t nearly as rhetorical as it may have seemed, not one of them answered. They just all leaned forward, practically in unison, like they’d rehearsed it or something, completely ignoring my overly emotional outburst that left me more than a little embarrassed, as their eyes focused on the screen just behind me. A screen that suddenly flickered to life, showing a stream of images of—

Well—

Me.

Me, at home in Eugene, Oregon, not even a year old and crawling after my big sister Ever who was just four years older and from what I could see, already mourning the loss of her privacy.

Me, a few years later, pedaling furiously on my new purple bike with the training wheels attached, doing my best to keep up with Ever, whose bike was lime green and a heck of a lot faster than mine.

Me, a few years later still, sneaking Ever’s clothes and wearing them to school without her knowing, even though they didn’t exactly fit and I had to roll up the hems and the sleeves.

Me, just last year, not long before the accident, spying on her and her old boyfriend Brandon with a mixture of fascination and revulsion as they kissed on the couch in our den when our parents were having one of their “date nights” and she was supposed to be babysitting me.

And honestly, I have no idea what the Council might’ve been thinking, but as for me, I was mortified. Unable to tear my eyes away from the screen of horrors that unfolded before me, and cringing with embarrassment as I watched an unmistakable pattern of behavior I’d never realized before.

A pattern of behavior I actually swore, time and again, didn’t actually exist.

Having successfully convinced myself it was Ever who wouldn’t stop bugging me, who practically lived just to torment me, and wouldn’t leave me alone no matter how much I complained.

But at that moment, watching the no-holds-barred, well-documented truth play out before me—well, there was no denying the fact that I’d spent the majority of my ridiculously short life stalking her, spying on her, copying her, and pretty much bugging her to the point of harassment.

Over a decade spent in one, long, pitiful attempt to be just like her.

My insides churned as fresh new images filled up the screen, each one that streamed past as equally humiliating as the one just before it. Causing me to wrap my arms around my waist, wanting to make myself smaller, to disappear, to be anywhere but there in that room, on that stage. Feeling all nauseous and clammy, like that time I got seasick at the lake.

My whole life had been a lie.

Not at all what I’d thought.

And there was just no hiding from that fact anymore.

Sure there were other moments mixed in, ones where Ever was off somewhere with her friends while I hung out with mine. But, for the most part, well, it was completely unbalanced, and there was just no getting around it.

As far as little sisters went, I was your everyday, garden-variety, textbook, pain in the bum.