“But it wasn’t! Lucky. Don’t you get it? It was my mom’s photos from college.”

He stills. “Oh shit.”

“Yes, shit!” I say, watching realization dawn over his face. He knows all about my origin story. At least he used to. I guess he remembers, or he’s heard gossip, because he looks mighty uncomfortable right now. “As far as the other thing Adrian said, I mean, I do have an online non-nude—I can’t stress that enough—subscription service. But I don’t even know how anyone here would know about it. We haven’t lived anywhere close to here in years. I know it’s not Evie spreading gossip about me.”

“It’s not Evie,” he confirms, taking off his helmet—the one with the Lucky 13 design.

“Can’t be Evie’s mom. Aunt Franny is kind of uptight, but she’s not mean. She’s more of a mind-my-own-business kind of person.”

“She makes good carrot cake,” he says.

She does. “Maybe my grandmother told people about my subscription service and it got distorted through gossip … ?” I make a frustrated sound at the night sky.

I’m so tired. I’m tired of gossip. And Beauty. And my mom. And defending my mom. And our terrible, broken communication. I’m tired of moving around. I’m tired of trying to prove myself to my father. I’m tired of feeling both too young to start my life and too old to cling to the way things were, and I’m tired of feeling so damn unstable and unsure about the future.

I’m tired of losing everything that’s important to me.

But most of all, right at this moment, I’m tired of looking at those polished steel letters of the Summers & Co sign, because why does this family get to be on top of the food chain?

His father cost me my internship.

And now Adrian’s blond, stupid I-row-at-Harvard head gets to humiliate me and hurt my cousin while I have to scurry into the shadows and hide.

The Summers family. I hate all of them.

And I hate Beauty.

Furious, I pick up a rock near my feet. It fills my palm with a delicious weight.

“Uh, Josie?”

I pull back my arm, use all my strength, and lob the rock at the shiny steel letters of the Summers & Co sign.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Lucky says, holding out his hands to stop me. But it’s too late.

Funny thing about rage. It makes you think you have more power than you do. My pipsqueak-size arm sends the rock sailing through the night air, sure enough, but it fails to reach the art deco sign. Instead, it lands smack in the middle of the giant display window.