Night Road(5)

Mia rolled over sleepily and opened her eyes, blinking slowly. Her pale, heart-shaped face, with its gorgeous bone structure—inherited from her father—was an acne battlefield that no amount of care had yet been able to clear. Multicolored rubberbands looped through her braces. “Hola, Madre.”

“It’s the first day of high school.”

Mia grimaced. “Shoot me. Really.”

“It’ll be better than middle school. You’ll see.”

“Says you. Can’t you homeschool me?”

“Remember sixth grade? When I tried to help you with your math homework?”

“Disaster,” Mia said glumly. “It could be better now, though. I wouldn’t get so mad at you.”

Jude stroked her daughter’s soft hair. “You can’t hide out from life, Poppet.”

“I don’t want to hide out from life. Just from high school. It’s like swimming with sharks, Mom. Honest. I could lose a foot.”

Jude couldn’t help smiling. “See? You have a great sense of humor.”

“That’s what they say when they’re trying to set up an ugly girl. Thanks, Madre. And who cares, anyway? It’s not like I have friends.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No. Zach has friends who try to be nice to his loser sister. It’s not the same thing.”

For years, Jude had moved heaven and earth to make her children happy, but this was one battle she couldn’t fight. It wasn’t easy to be the shy twin sister of the most popular boy in school. “I have a present for you.”

“Really?” Mia sat up. “What is it?”

“Open it.” Jude offered the small wrapped box.

Mia ripped open the box. Inside lay a thin pink leather diary with a gleaming brass lock.

“I had one when I was your age, and I wrote down everything that happened to me. It can help—writing stuff down. I was shy, too, you know.”

“But you were beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful, Mia. I wish you saw that.”

“Yeah, right. Zits and braces are all the rage.”

“Just be open to people, okay, Mia? This is a new school, make it a new opportunity, okay?”

“Mom, I’ve been going to school with the same kids since kindergarten. I don’t think a new address is going to help. Besides, I tried being open … with Haley, remember?”

“That was more than a year ago, Mia. It doesn’t do any good to focus on the bad things that happen. Today is the first day of high school. A new start.”

“Okay.” Mia tried gamely to smile.

“Good. Now get out of bed. I want to get to school early today, so I can help you find your locker and get you settled into first period. You have Mr. Davies for geometry; I want him to know how well you did on the WASL test.”

“You are not walking me into class. And I can find my locker by myself, too.”

Intellectually, Jude knew that Mia was right, but Jude wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. Too many things could go wrong. Mia was fragile, too easily flustered. What if someone made fun of her?

A mother’s job was to protect her kids—whether they wanted it or not. She stood up. “I’ll be practically invisible. You’ll see. No one will even know I’m there.”

Mia groaned.





Two





On the first day of school, Lexi woke early and staggered down the narrow hallway to the bathroom. One look in the mirror confirmed her worst fears: her skin was pale, a little sallow, even, and her blue eyes were puffy and bloodshot. She must have cried in her sleep again.

She took a quick, lukewarm shower, careful not to waste her aunt’s money. There was no real point in drying her hair. The waist-length black strands would curl and frizz and do whatever they wanted to, so she pulled it all into a ponytail and went back to her room.

There, she opened her closet door and stared at the few articles of clothing she owned. There were so few choices …

What did kids wear here? Would Pine Island be like Brentwood or the Hills, where kids dressed like avant-garde fashion models? Or East L.A., where rap-star wannabes and grungoids filled the classrooms?

There was a knock at her bedroom door, so quiet Lexi barely heard it. She made her bed quickly and then opened the door.

Eva stood there, holding a cotton-candy-pink sweatshirt with a rhinestone butterfly bedazzled onto the front. The kidney-shaped wings were purple and yellow and shamrock green. “I got this for you at work yesterday. I figured every girl should have something new to wear on the first day of high school.”

It was the ugliest thing Lexi had ever seen, better suited to a four-year-old than a fourteen-year-old, but she loved it instantly. No one had ever bought her something special for the first day of school. “It’s perfect,” she said, feeling a tightening in her throat. She’d only lived with her aunt for four days, and every hour she felt a little more at home. It scared her, that settling in. She knew how dangerous it could be to start liking a place. A person.

“You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. I just thought—”

“I can’t wait to wear it. Thanks, Eva.”

Her aunt gave her a smile so bright it bunched up her cheeks. “I told Mildred you’d like it.”