So the volunteering was great, it made being a good girl worthwhile.
But the part where my parents showed me off like a prized pony and pretended that my illness didn’t exist because it didn’t fit in with their ideal life was beginning to consume me. I was fed up and repressed in a way that made me sick of spirit as well as of body.
I was seventeen years old. I was basically an adult; a fully formed human being. And I had no idea who I was outside of my parents expectations, outside of the mirror Entrance society held in front of me, more a painting of their own making than a true representation of myself.
“I don’t even know who I am. How cliché is that?” I whispered.
“Pretty fucking cliché,” Reece agreed easily.
We were silent as I chewed over my suitably teenage brooding thoughts and Reece stared out the window thinking about whatever Reece thought about.
“You know what else is cliché? Rebelling against your parents,” he finally said, leaning over the console so that he spoke right into my ear.
I shivered but my thoughts had led me down the same path. “Yeah.”
He grinned at me. “It’s going to be fun, Louise. You’ll like normal teenage life and all the bad decisions you get to make when you don’t give a fuck who you’ll disappoint.”
I frowned because that didn’t sound like fun. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to disappoint my parents. In truth, I was angry with them for a variety of reasons and all of them had to do with their response—or lack of one—to my cancer.
I didn’t want to let myself down by making stupid decisions that could harm me or someone else.
Reece put a warm hand over mine on the gearshift, his voice gentle when he said, “I’ll watch out for you. I want you to have fun, get into just enough trouble to taste life, not end up dead in a gutter somewhere.”
“Okay,” I agreed, as if I wasn’t terrified.
“Okay,” he repeated.
The bass pulsed like a musical heart beat beneath my bare feet as I stomped them to the rhythm of the Kygo song that blasted through the massive speakers set up throughout the main level of the house. There was a red Solo cup in my hand filled with warm beer Reece had tapped from a massive keg of Blue Buck in the corner and the contents sloshed over my fingers as I tossed my sweaty hair back and forth over my exposed shoulders. I’d already had a few cups of beer as well as two shots of vodka that Lila, Hudson and Reece had poured for me to start the evening off.
Reece was right, I liked Lila and she liked me.
She was three years older than us and back from UBC for summer break. I’d never met such a graceful, willowy woman but her classic beauty and the good humor in her huge hazel eyes enthralled me. She had me laughing before I could remember to be awkward and when she had offered me clothes, she’d only laughed a little bit at the absurd fit of the jean skirt and crop top I’d tried on. Lila was maybe five foot four and one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. I was five foot nine and curvy.
After we’d both had a good laugh, we’d improvised. Now, I wore the fragile camisole that I’d been wearing under my shift and a stretchy black skirt that on Lila went to just below her knees but on me came up to mid-thigh. I wasn’t wearing shoes because my sensible, low heels were not party shoes. Lila had done my makeup, taking the time to teach me how so that I could do it in the future.
I didn’t know when I’d have the opportunity to wear red lipstick ever again but it looked pretty cool with all the blond hair I had, mussed with a bit of styling goop that smelled like coconuts. When I’d come downstairs to join Reece and his friend Hudson in the kitchen both of their mouths had fallen open like the hinges broke.
When the rest of Entrance Bay Acad—and it really seemed like the entire school minus my squad of preppy kids was there—showed up, they had similar reactions to my presence. Shock, awe and finally, laughter. Apparently, it was amusing to see Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes dressed like a teenage tramp, drinking warm beer and grinding up against the masses. I wasn’t insulted because sometimes I was so saccharine that it made even my teeth ache and because it was pretty funny and became funnier as the night grew long and I grew drunk.
The sun had set a long time ago but the air was still warm so a bunch of us were hanging in Hudson and Lila’s backyard. Reece, true to his word, hadn’t left my side all night and he made sure we always had booze. He was super handsome and actually pretty fun, always telling jokes and sharing stories so as the night wore on and he grew closer, a hand on my shoulder then an arm around my waist with his fingers settling intimately over my hip, I didn’t protest.