"Bullshit," I hear myself say, the words echoing through the stillness of the room. They sound stronger than I do, like they're coming from someone else, someone more sure of herself than I am. I step around the other side of the table and walk toward the door, all the while refusing to make eye contact with Hendrix. I'd rather go to some fake rehab for thirty days than have Hendrix escort me everywhere. "You're looking out for your own interests."
"Goddamn it, Addison." My mother stands up, shrugging off my stepfather's grasp when he tries to get her to sit down, and rushes toward me, her face contorted with anger. "I've put too much work into you to have you blow this off like it's no big deal, just so you can party all night and act like a little slut, do you understand?"
"A slut? Really, mother?" I hear myself say. But I feel light-headed, and my voice sounds weak. The room begins to sway, and I totter, regretting my choice of high heels. My mother grabs my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin, and I want to smack her, but I suddenly feel paralyzed, like I'm stuck in quicksand. I shouldn't have skipped breakfast, I think. Did I eat dinner last night?
Then Hendrix is standing in front of me, positioned between my mother and me, his hands on my arms. When he speaks, his voice sounds muffled, like he's talking to me from underwater.
I never noticed what an odd shade of blue his eyes are, I think, feeling strangely detached from everything. They're the color of the sky before a storm. That's what my grandmother would call it. There's a storm-sky rolling in, Addy, she'd say, taking my hand in hers. In the south, the sky turns this gray-blue, almost black, right before the heavens rip open and unleash a torrent of rain.
I wonder what Hendrix is hiding behind those eyes.
That's the last thought I have before everything goes dark.
SEVEN YEARS AGO
"This is not the time or place for your bullshit, do you fucking understand me, Hendrix?" My father stands in front of me, his voice low and deep in his throat, speaking in hushed tones so that his new wife and her perfect little brood don't accidentally overhear him. He wouldn't want them thinking that anything less than the ideal father and son were becoming part of the family.
"Whatever." I roll my eyes, speaking the word under my breath. My father, with all his rigidity and goddamn propriety ("There's a reason protocol exists, Hendrix, a reason for a chain-of-command; life needs order" and all that blah blah blah bullshit), decided that it would be perfectly fucking appropriate to marry the mother of a damn teenage country music star. They eloped. Didn't tell anyone. He went and did it two weeks ago, while I was still at military school. They didn't even have the courtesy to wait until I was on summer break or anything.
It's not like I wanted to be involved in some stupid wedding anyway.
Whatever.
The Colonel didn't even bother showing up to the academy in person to tell me, not that I'd expect him to. He called to drop that bombshell over the phone. And since I got kicked out of military academy last week – none of the Colonel's bluster and blather could get them to keep me after I screwed the General's daughter – now I've been carted to Nashville fucking Tennessee, which I think must be redneck capital of the United States, to meet my new family.
"Whatever?" The Colonel stands in front of me, his face contorted with rage. I know he wants to hit me right now, more than anything. But we're here in the entryway of his new wife's mansion, this ridiculous place that's so suburban-new-money it makes me want to vomit. So he wouldn't dare slug me, not here in the middle of everything. I'm sure she doesn't want bloodstains on her fancy tile.
"Sir, yes, sir," I say, my tone mocking. I'll rile him up and not feel a damn bit of guilt about it. Why should I? He's the one who's dragging me along for the ride, inserting me into this new family life.
A small voice cuts through the tension. "Are you Hendrix?"
I turn around to see her, walking down the marble monstrosity of a staircase that curves up to the rooms upstairs.
Addison Stone.
When my father told me who he was dating – the "dating" part was a lie, by the way, since he'd already married Addison's mother, Wendy Stone -- I didn't recognize the name. Then I did a little internet research. Addison Stone was some kind of media sensation, discovered on one of those reality singing shows two years ago.
Now she has an album and she's touring and shit. She's younger than me. Which means it's only a matter of time until the comparisons begin: "Addison has made a million dollars already; what are you going to do with your life?"
Addison is definitely hotter than she looked on the videos I watched of her online. Her long blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail that swings as she bounces down the stairs in her jeans and bare feet with her perfect little pink pedicure. She's wearing lip gloss on her perfectly pouty pink lips. I watch her walk across the marble floor -- she practically bounces as she moves -- and then she flashes her perfect, gleaming white teeth in a perfect little smile and holds out her hand. "I'm Addison Stone," she says, her cheeks pink as she grins like an idiot.
I look at perfect little Addison in her perfect little house and I decide I fucking hate her.