Broken Beautiful Hearts(120)

“I still can’t believe she went through with it and made you move in with your dad. She’s usually so full of crap.”

Mom has always reigned supreme as the queen of empty threats … until now.

I prop my feet on the glove compartment and hug my knees. “She even carried my bags up to Dad’s apartment. And Mom hates carrying things almost as much as she hates him.” I packed my stuff in black trash bags instead of suitcases to make her feel guilty, or at least to force my mother to haul around what looked like garbage. But it didn’t faze her. I’m not sure she noticed.

I leave out that part of the story, and the lull in the conversation lasts too long.

“Enough with the silence. I get plenty of that at home,” Lex says. “Back to your mom. How did she pull this off so fast? It’s only been a week since your DUI. Even the Senator would be impressed.”

Fast is an understatement.

It’s Wednesday morning. Seven days after I walked out of the police station with my parents and King Richard. The minute we got home, Mom told me to pack, like she couldn’t wait to get rid of me, while my piece-of-crap stepfather hovered in the hallway.

Don’t get me wrong—I was happy to go. The Heights reminds me of Noah and my screwed-up memory.

But Mom doesn’t know I feel that way. That would require an actual conversation—something she left to the army of doctors, shrinks, and hypnotists she hired to bring back the old Frankie. Recovering my memories so I could identify Noah’s killer and move on was never the real goal. Once I figured that out, I stopped talking to the shrinks. I’ll find a way to remember without her help.

The next day, Mom drove me out of the Heights—our exclusive community in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, DC—to Dad’s two-bedroom apartment in Westridge, a neighborhood full of townhouses and garden apartments, less than six miles away. But six miles feels like a hundred when a five-minute car ride can mean the difference between living in the Heights or in Section 8 housing.

Mom left me on his doorstep with the garbage bags full of my stuff—like she had finally taken out the trash.

“Frankie?” Lex sounds worried.

I force a smile. “Sorry, I spaced. Dad is all over Project Reform Frankie, and it’s stressing me out. If things had worked out the way he planned, I would’ve started school yesterday. But according to Dad, a Dolly Parton look-alike in the office at Monroe refused to call Woodley for my immunization records. She told him to drive over there and get them himself.”

“That’s Mrs. Lane. She doesn’t take crap from anybody. Couldn’t your dad get you out of community service?”

If hell froze over.

“In Dad’s universe, rules don’t bend. Everything is black or white. There is no gray.”

Lex glances at my hands locked tight around my legs. “Nervous about your first day?”

Anything is better than going back to Woodley. Not that it was an option. Mom met with the headmaster and begged him not to expel me and ruin my chance at getting into Stanford. But she wasn’t persuasive enough. Knowing Mom, she’s probably devastated.

I’m relieved.

The Stanford dream belonged to the old Frankie—a girl who learned how to spin the straw she was given into the gold everyone else wanted.

The old Frankie played up her cute features with makeup tricks, hunted for jeans that made her boyish figure appear curvier, and adopted the style of her favorite fashion bloggers because she didn’t trust her own. At parties, lots of fake giggling and bathroom trips to flush vodka shots down the toilet allowed her to act cool without doing anything that could jeopardize the Plan. A nothing-special-but-cute-enough girl who landed the captain of the lacrosse team because he’d had a crush on her since they were kids.

It’s hard to believe I was ever that girl.

I lean against the headrest. “Monroe has to be an improvement.”

“Was the first day at Woodley really that bad?”

“It was basically the seventh circle of hell. People taped notes and cards all over Noah’s locker and left flowers and teddy bears on the floor in front of it.”

“Woodley is full of attention whores. Getting kicked out of that place was a relief.” Lex has been expelled from four private schools in two years, beginning with Woodley—not easy to pull off when you’re the daughter of a senator. Lex takes pride in her academic rap sheet because every expulsion embarrasses her mother with her socialite friends.

She turns onto Bellflower Parkway, where the garden apartment complexes end and the nicest of the low-income developments in the Downs begin. Tan brick buildings with barred windows line the street, identical except for the collections of plastic high chairs, toys, and tricycles piled on the balconies.

Monroe High is only a few blocks away, in the good section of a bad neighborhood. But barred windows are barred windows.

Lex rakes her fingers through her hair, messing it up a little. “At least we’re finally at the same school again.”

A few months ago I would’ve loved the idea. But now I just want to start over. As much as I love Lex, that’s harder to do with her around.

She glances at me, her lips pressed together.

Crap. That was my cue to act excited. I suck. “I know you have other friends at Monroe, Lex. I don’t expect you to hang out with me all the time.”