Flower(64)

“You didn’t listen to me,” she says, staring straight at me. Her black hair dye is beginning to wash out. Just as I’d suspected, I can see a hint of red underneath.

“I’m sorry, I don’t even know—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“I told you to stay away,” she says before she begins taking swift steps backward. “I told you.”

Then she turns and pushes past a woman in the doorway, and is gone.

I look at myself in the mirror, my ponytail a mess from the flight. My green eyes look tired and I realize I look older, somehow—like I know things I hadn’t known before. I’m not sure what to think—about the paparazzi waiting outside the door, or the girl with the dyed black hair and her strange warning. I steel myself. Once I make it out of here, I have to face my grandma, too, and somehow that’s an even more frightening thought.

*

Grandma is beyond furious.

I try to avoid seeing her by slipping into the house quietly and sneaking down to my room, but she appears in my bedroom doorway as soon as I drop my suitcase onto the floor. I’m exhausted after evading the paparazzi by cutting through the crowd and boarding a bus—I just want to crawl into bed and hide, but I won’t be so lucky.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she says quietly, her youthful face flushed.

I should apologize, I should admit that I made a mistake and promise never to do it again, but I can’t believe what she’s saying. My anger is burning away all rationality.

“I’m me, Grandma. Nothing is different.”

“Excuse me?” she says, taking a step over the threshold into my room. “Nothing is different? Charlotte, you’ve been lying to me for months. The Charlotte I knew wanted to go to Stanford and make something of herself. If I’d told you six months ago you’d be sneaking around and letting some boy fly you all over the country, you’d have laughed in my face.”

“I still want to make something of myself,” I retort. “Just because I flew to New York for one weekend doesn’t mean I’m giving up anything. It’s my life,” I remind her, steeling myself. “And I love him.”

It’s too much for her. Her eyes widen, her face freezes in place—immobilized in shock. And then she shakes her head, grasping for words. “Don’t be stupid, Charlotte. A boy like that only wants one thing from you. I thought you knew that. I thought you were smarter than this. What happens when he moves on to the next poor, na?ve young girl? Your broken heart will be smeared all over every gossip page in the country, right there for everyone to see. Every college professor. Every prospective employer. Can you stand there and tell me that’s really what you want?”

“He’s not like that,” I say in a burst of fury. “And this isn’t even about me. This is about you. You’re so afraid that I’ll end up like Mia or Mom, because the truth is, they both ended up just like you. You ruined your life because you got pregnant too young. Well, I’m not going to ruin mine—I’m not like you. And Tate’s not like Grandpa or my dad or Leo’s.”

“You do not get to speak to me that way,” she snaps back. “And don’t you ever lie to me again, not while you’re living under my roof.” She turns in the doorway and I bite down on all the words crawling up to the surface. I hate her rules, her hypocritical demand for perfection.

I listen for the sound of her bedroom door slamming shut down the hall, then I yell, “And I got into Stanford, if anyone cares.”

Leo breaks into a cry behind Mia’s doorway but is quickly soothed—Mia must be standing on the other side of her door, listening to everything. Then the house falls still again.

I flop onto my bed, pulling the blankets up over my head. When I was little I used to think I’d disappear if I closed my eyes tight enough. I’d imagine myself someplace new, someplace I’d only ever read about.

Now, just when the world is finally opening up to me, I feel more trapped than ever.





TWENTY-ONE

FIVE DAYS LATER, THINGS HAVE barely changed at home. I haven’t made up with Grandma, but then, I haven’t seen Tate either—it’s not like I could, with him in New York. So we’re at a standoff.

I walk quickly through the night air and into the lab at UCLA. Rebecca is already standing at one of the stations, tagging samples. “Hey,” she says. “Um, so...”

“Thanks for getting started without me.” I smile. “That was really nice of you—I know I’ve been late a lot lately.”

“No problem. I didn’t realize you were...” She pauses, looking for the right word. “Famous.”

“Ha!” I can’t help but say. “Hardly.” I smile at her. “Tate’s the famous one. I just got caught in the cross fire.”

She nods, and I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask any more questions. She’s known longer than anyone that I’m back with Tate Collins—she was there the night he showed up at the lab. So in an odd way, she’s the only person I haven’t lied to. And I barely even know her, beyond our small talk during lab hours. She’s not the chatty type, and right now I’m glad for that.

At school on Monday, Carlos had wanted to know everything about New York, about Tate, and then what had happened when I got home and had to face Grandma. But as much as I had appreciated his genuine concern, I hadn’t wanted to talk about any of it. Ever since returning from New York, every part of my life has felt constrictive.