Wild Girl (Slateview High 2)

He was going to get out, and he was going to do better. Be better.

A choked noise escaped my lips as a flood of emotions blazed through me. Though having Mom’s arms around me was a foreign feeling, I couldn’t help but return the embrace, wrapping tight around her in response.

“I… Holy shit. I can’t believe it. When’s he coming home?”

“What do you mean, Cordelia? We’re going home. Everything is back in our hands. Obviously we’ll need to replace certain items… track them down, but with your father out of prison and our social standing corrected—”

“What about school?” I asked, pulling away.

She scoffed, looking down at me like I was crazy. “What about school? This is a place for mongrels, and certainly not a place for any daughter of mine. We’ll obviously be pulling you out as soon as possible and putting you back at Highland Park Academy where you belong.”

Back at the academy, where I belonged. Back home.

Away from here.

I hadn’t been naive enough to think that things wouldn’t change after my father got out of prison, but the reality of it happening so soon truly struck me for the first time. I had actually gotten attached to things here. To people here.

The boys…

My boys.

I would have to tell them that Nathaniel had made good on his promise to help me, and had apparently done it so thoroughly that we were regaining everything we’d lost when my father had gone to prison. What I hadn’t truly taken into account—what I had never let myself think about for too long—was what I would lose should my father return. It made a lump form in my throat and tears well in my eyes before I could stop them.

“Good God, Cordelia, what’s wrong with you?”

I shook my head, scrubbing the tears from my face.

“Nothing. I’m just… I’m just so happy,” I said, the words only halfway true. “I’m going to—tell my friends the good news.”

I left the kitchen before my mom could stop me and question the validity of my plans. I hadn’t lied to her. I was going to contact friends—but not the ones she was probably expecting.

My hands shook as I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Bishop.

ME: We need to talk.

Twenty-Five

The boys were out on a job for Nathaniel when they got my message, but Bish texted back quickly to tell me to meet at his place at nine.

Mom was fluttering around the house like a hummingbird, full of an energy I hadn’t seen in her even after she’d started her affair with Mr. Jemison. She placed dozens of phone calls, arranging things and making plans, and as I listened through the closed door of my bedroom, I could hear her voice start to change, regaining the imperious quality it’d had for most of my life.

I was sure she felt like she’d just been reborn.

So why did a little part of me feel like I was dying?

I counted down the seconds as the evening wore on, and when nine o’clock finally rolled around, I threw on a jacket and headed out the door without bothering to tell Mom where I was going. I could see lights on at Bishop’s place, and the warm glow in the darkness of the winter night made an ache rise up in my chest.

His foster parents were almost never home, and I was sure they were gone tonight as usual, so I didn’t even bother knocking, just turned the knob and stepped inside.

They’d left the door unlocked for me, and all three boys looked up as I entered. Misael and Kace were already there, and I wasn’t the only one of us who seemed down; they all sat in the living room, looking subdued and contemplative. I settled between Bishop and Kace on the couch, quiet for a moment.

Finally, when I couldn’t take the silence any longer, I sighed.

“You know,” I said softly.

It wasn’t a question. They had to. They looked nearly as miserable as I felt, and that was the only explanation for our collective melancholy.

Bishop nodded.