Page 9 of Chaos

I shove my hands into my back pockets.Excellent point.

“Boyfriend?”

“Absolutely not.”

Lux makes a noise of complete and utter relief.

With Ricky gone, she eases her way deeper into the room, and any lingering man-related irritation evaporates. I suddenly find it really hard to stay still. I suddenly view the small space with hypercritical eyes. I suddenly care way too much about the glorified cave I do little more than rot in when I’m not working—I care way too much about what someone who only cares about me when I’ve done something wrong might think of it.

Lux doesn’t give anything away as she pokes around. Not until something on my desk catches her attention, something she picks up and frowns at. “You changed your last name?”

I swallow. “Not legally.”

With a bitter laugh, Lux drops the plastic card with my picture, my birthday, and the words ‘Lottie Higa’ stamped on the front. “You’d rather risk using a fake ID than be a Jackson?”

No. I’d rather risk using a fake ID than be constantly reminded that no one wanted me to be Jackson anymore. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You used Mom’s name,” she accuses as if it’s some grave betrayal, and I guess, all things considered, it kind of is.

“It’s our name too. And I don’t wanna talk about Mom.”

I don’t want to talk at all because talking leads to fighting, and I’m too tired to fight. My ankle hurts and I smell like hospital and I haven’t showered since I took on the front of a house and lost so there’s still a fine layer of dust coating damn near every inch of me. I want to clean up and put on my pajamas and maybe scream into my pillow for a little while, but I can’t do that, not with Lux here.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say halfheartedly, hoping that’s all that’s necessary to get rid of her.

Evidently, it’s not.

And at the same time I realize she isn’t going anywhere, I realize she isn’t just poking around. She’s looking for something. For the two bags she finds stuffed beneath my bed, a duffel bag that she clutches tightly and a backpack that she tosses at me. “Start packing.”

I stare at her dumbly. “Excuse me?”

Wrenching the top drawer right out of my dresser, Lux tips the contents into the duffel. “You can’t seriously think there’s not gonna be consequences for this.”

“You can’t seriously think you can just clap your hands and I’ll do what you say.”

“Fuck knows I’ve never thought that,” she mutters snarkily before sighing, turning to me with her hands on her hips. “That couple whose house you ruined won’t be pressing chargesbecause I paid for the damage. And now you’re gonna pay me back.”

“Oh, fuck off.” I can’t help but laugh. “We both know you can afford it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point, Alexandra?”

“You’re gonna come home,” she states like it’s a fact, like I’m already halfway back to Serenity. “You’re gonna work for me. Pay off your debt. And,” she adds before I can spew the refusal already brewing. “You’re going back to rehab.”

Again, I laugh. Cackle a touch deliriously as a fine layer of panicked sweat makes my skin feel clammy. “You can’t make me.”

Lux does not laugh. There’s nothing delirious about her. She is serious and unwavering andcocky. “You wanna bet?”

No. No, I don’t. Not against her. And she knows it, she’ssmugabout it, but she tempers her righteousness enough for me to see how much she is not playing around. “Six months. That’s all I’m asking. Come home, work, stay sober. If you do that, you can have everything back. Your cards, your accounts, everything. And if it’s what you really want, you’ll never see me again.”

I wonder if she would believe me if I told her I never cared about any of that. That not once in the past two years has I ever really missed the monetary manifestation of so much familial guilt—no, not guilt, because our grandparents never felt bad about not loving us, about leaving me and my siblings to fend for ourselves after our parents left us to them. They threw money at us because that was their parenting technique, that was their love.

That money had strings back then and it still has them now. I didn’t want it then and I don’t want it now, which is why it’s so, so easy to say no. Or to start to, at least.

Lux sees the word on the tip of my tongue, and hers clucks. Her mouth quirks into something arrogant, something provoking. “What?” she taunts. “You don’t think you can do it?”

Oh, fuck her for doing that. For thinking that would get me. For beingright. Because it’s like the moment she challenges me, a defiant switch in my brain flips. The need to prove her wrong overwhelms anything else.

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