Page 252 of Ominous: Part 1
Me: I need to tell you something, don’t be mad.
Him: Okay…
Biting my tongue, I give him a brief summary of how it came to be Dom and everyone else were invited to Eli’s beach house. By me.
“You need to pee?” Mom’s voice startles me. I glance over at her, sensing the van has slowed, then take in the small rest stop with a slated roof over a brown building, a few families heading down the sidewalk to the restrooms.
“No, I’m good,” I tell Mom, meaning it.
“Be right back, then we’ll get the milkshakes.” She leaves the van running, the A/C on even though it’s a little chilly out. It must be a Rain family trait to sweat without reprieve.
Eli: I’m starting to think Dominic has a crush on you.
I laugh a little.Me: You just figured it out?
Him: No, but I’ve just now seriously considered killing him.
* * *
Amanda iscurly red hair and freckles, and with a popsicle clutched in her hand, she looks like a child. Or maybe just younger than I feel.
Mom is in the kitchen with Manda’s mom, cackling at something that can’t possibly be so funny, or maybe I just feel nothing could ever be amusing in this tiny blue house by the ocean.
Maybe I’m obsessing so much over Eli, I can’t find anything positive at all anywhere he isn’t. Except the milkshake. I finished that in record time in the van.
“How’s the new school?” Amanda licks her cartoon character popsicle with square pants and a yellow body, she said she got it from the ice cream truck which Mom and I saw a couple of barren streets over. The best thing about this house, besides the blue exterior, is the ten-minute walk to the beach, and the five-minute walk to the carwash. Sometimes Amanda and I would go there, back when we didn’t have cars, and spray each other down with hoses and pink foam, which, in retrospect, probably wasn’t great for our skin or our lungs, but it smelled good, and it was fun.
Theworstthing about this house is I’m forced to make stilted conversation with someone I’ve blown off for months now. Someone I used to call my best friend. I think I lied.
I shift on the scratchy, coral-colored couch, staring down at the thin, brown carpet, arms crossed over my chest, feet dangling an inch from the floor. I glance at the fading tan on my legs beneath my cut-off black shorts, made from a pair of jeans with wide legs I didn’t love Mom bought me last year. My ripped-up lavender shirt slips off of one shoulder, but it’s supposed to be like that anyway, so I let it go.
“It’s… a castle.” I lift my gaze to Manda, smiling.
She pauses her licking. These are things we never spoke about. Things best friends should’ve discussed. She knew I was going to a new school, of course, but we never talked about much beyond it.
She blinks wide blue eyes, scooting to the edge of the faded gray chair she’s in across from me. She takes a bite out of the yellow cartoon body, lopping off an eye, too. “Really?” she asks between mouthfuls of ice cream.
My phone is in my hand, tucked under my bicep, and I squeeze it tight as I nod. “Really.”
“Damn.”
“I know.”
Our moms laugh again from the kitchen at my back.
“The boys?” Manda’s freckly face turns pink when she asks, because we both know it wasthe boysthat got me in trouble at Shoreside.
“They’re hot. And rich. And some of them are assholes.” Well, really only Dominic, and sometimes Eli. Ansel was nice today, a kind smile, soft hair between the color of brown and blond. His Latin pronunciation was phenomenal.
“Of course. People with money are always assholes.” Manda takes another chunk out of the sponge character.
It’s a lie we were raised to believe, maybe indirectly. People who have money are bad, people without it are treated unfairly, and it’s the ones with it doing the maltreatment.
I just nod because I don’t want to argue some are nice. Like Eric Addison. A single dad with more money than I’ll ever see in my life, and he’s as kind as they come.
Except for that one little thing.
Except for the bruises.
