Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(66)

Sheila handed her one from the junk drawer and watched as the girl sipped from the straw just like her daughter had—an odd quirk everybody used to make fun of her for. This girl looked nothing like her daughter, but she just was her, somehow, in a way Sheila couldn’t quite grasp.

Sheila took a deep breath. She couldn’t help herself.

“How do you feel about Megan?”

*

Once Scarlett and Gideon managed to break into his dad’s records, Ashbot was easy to track down. She had been purchased by Steve Mullen, the VP of Ordinaria Inc., and his wife, Sheila.

“Whoa.” Scarlett made a yikes face. “Is that like, ‘rich dude and his wife get a teen sex slave’?”

Gideon suddenly remembered that Steve’s daughter’s funeral had been around this time of year.

“Oh, shit.”

*

“So what’d you do today?” Sheila asked through a mouthful of bruschetta. The pasta was still boiling, but they’d already all sat down to eat. Steve was on his computer, as usual.

“Put that away!” Sheila nudged him. His glasses slid down his nose as he reluctantly complied, crunching into his bread in silence. Sheila smiled.

Megan shrugged. “Uhh, I went to class. Soccer practice. We got pizza after.”

“What!?” Sheila spread her arms wide. “But I made all this.”

“And I’ll eat all this. And so will Dad.”

Steve’s head shot up with a split-second expression of extreme distress, but it immediately disappeared. He nodded assent.

“Yup,” he said. “And we can eat the leftovers all week, babe, so don’t sweat it.”

Sheila put her hand on his arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Ewww, stop,” said Megan.

The doorbell rang, and Megan jumped up and ran toward the living room, her long hair—now dyed brown—streaming behind her. “Comiiiiiing!”

Megan opened the door and found Scarlett and Gideon standing on the stoop, looking incredibly concerned.

“Hey, can we help you with something?” she asked quizzically.

“We’ve been looking all over for you, Ashbot!” said Scarlett. Megan winced.

“That’s not my name anymore. It’s Megan.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And my family and I are kind of in the middle of having dinner, so . . .”

“You don’t want to do this,” Gideon pleaded. “They don’t really want you—you’re just a replacement. You’re gonna have to live in somebody else’s shadow.”

Megan shook her head, determined.

“I don’t care what the reason is. They’re nice to me. They act like I’m their actual daughter. They’re good people, and they were good parents, and what happened to them was unfair. It’s not like when I was a rental, when everybody who hired me was some loser who had no friends because they were making the choice to be a shitty person, even though they wouldn’t admit it.”

Gideon looked at her for a long time, stunned at the level of critical thinking she was able to do. He couldn’t deny it; she did seem happier.

“Are you sure?” he whispered.

Megan nodded. Gideon paused, not knowing what to do next. So he just hugged her. “Okay,” he mumbled into her hair.

She nodded a farewell to Scarlett and went back inside the warm, bright house where her parents were waiting. She shut the door.

Scarlett and Gideon began to walk back to his car.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

They smiled at each other.

“I guess . . . whatever we want.”





Chapter 26


IMAGINARY DETECTIVES IS NO LYCANTHROPE HIGH, BUT IT’S pretty damn good: Two rogue P.I.s team up to solve crimes that the real cops don’t care enough about. Davis is a tall, handsome family man who always follows the rules, and Nickerson is an insanely hot brooding guy who drinks too much, and they’re “partners,” like in the detective way but also the “as overtly in love as possible on homophobic network television” way. They’re so different, but they silently understand each other. My Tumblr is full of gifs of them right now.

When I’m not gushing with Loup about them, I’m hanging out IRL with the Girl Geniuses. I used to think they were just mouth breathers, but Leslie is actually kind of awesome and shockingly vulgar once you get to know her better, and Mike is surprisingly sweet and has random hidden hobbies like building crazy things out of Legos and designing kites. I get why Avery likes him—he’s a really nice guy.

But mostly I sit in Ruth’s garden. Sometimes I work on it, even though real estate agents will probably be by to show the house any day now. It’s looking good. Gardening is a profession, right? Maybe I’ll get into that. I like the harmlessness of it, spending your days growing flowers.

As I yank some weeds out of the ground, I suddenly hear a baa. Not a distant baa. One that almost literally is in my ear.

“Hey.”

Gideon is standing at the perimeter of the garden, holding a leash. He looks tentative, which is a strange expression to see on a guy who just walked a sheep down the side of a highway. The sheep’s expression is vacant, and I think it’s drooling.

“Is that . . . what the f*ck, is that a sheep?”