Dear Enemy
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 by Kristen Callihan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542016773
ISBN-10: 1542016770
Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson
CONTENTS
START READING
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
―Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
PROLOGUE
Ten Years Ago
Shermont High School, Shermont, North Carolina
Senior Class Yearbook Exit Interview
Question 1: If you had to do high school all over again, would you?
Macon Saint: You’re kidding me, right? No.
Delilah Baker: Is this a trick question? No.
Question 2: Who is most likely to succeed from our class?
Delilah Baker: Oh, come on. Everyone knows it will be Macon. Not that he’ll deserve it.
Macon Saint: Me. And Delilah Baker. She’s like a barnacle; she’ll cling until she gets where she wants to go.
Question 3: Who do you want with you if there’s a hostile alien invasion?
Macon Saint: Delilah Baker. She’d yap so much and so loudly the aliens would turn around and flee.
Delilah Baker: Macon Saint. I’d toss him in their path and gain valuable seconds running for my life.
Question 4: Most memorable moment in high school, and did you enjoy it?
Delilah Baker: Graduating. Yes.
Macon Saint: Prom. Not one f*cking bit.
Macon Saint was the devil. Anyone with a lick of sense knew it. Unfortunately, when it came to Macon, none of my fellow classmates at Shermont High School seemed to possess the sense that God gave them. No, they’d all fawn over him as though he were a god. I suspected that was the true mark of the devil: turning people into starry-eyed fools when they ought to know better.
Not that I could blame them. Beauty made fools of us all. Macon had the face of an angel—so beautiful you wondered if it truly had been sculpted by the hand of God, black hair so thick and glossy it might well have had a halo floating over it. Yes, he was that pretty. The only one who could rival him for sheer physical perfection was my sister, Samantha.
While the rest of us were entering adolescence with all the awkward grace of molting swans, struggling with our too-big puppy feet, crooked teeth, and certain features that grew faster than others, only Macon and Sam remained immune.
What a pair they were, pimple-free and perfectly proportioned. Luminous against the normal tarnish of puberty. It wasn’t any surprise that they became an on-again, off-again couple throughout middle school and high school. The beautiful ones.
The ones destined to make my life hell.
Cold and often silent, Macon would usually stare at me as if he couldn’t quite understand why we were sharing the same air. It was one thing we agreed on. Otherwise, we got along like snow and salt.
The first time I saw Macon, he was standing on the great expanse of lawn that stretched toward the manor house that had been in his mama’s family for generations. Clutching a baseball, he watched me as I rode my bike up and down the road. He was skinny as a rail and two inches shorter than me. I’d felt oddly protective of him, believing the look in his eyes was one of vulnerability. I found out quickly how wrong I was.
“Hey,” I said to him, after stopping in front of his house on my bike. “I moved into the house down the way. Maybe you’d like a friend?”
He turned his eyes on me then. Those dark, dark eyes, so brown they were almost black, surrounded by thick, long lashes. Eyes that girls would call pretty and sigh over throughout all our days of school. Cold and calculating eyes, if you asked me. Those eyes narrowed on my face. “You stupid or something?”
His words hit me like a slap. “What?”
He shrugged. “Guess so.”
I didn’t understand this boy. I’d been polite, just as my mother had taught me. “Why would you call me stupid?”
“I’ve lived here my whole life. You think I wouldn’t notice if someone new moved in on my street? You think I need more friends?”
“I was just being sociable. My mistake.”
“Sociable? You talk like an old lady.”
Politeness was clearly for chumps. “You’re a jerk.”
He lifted his chin then, revealing a bruising scratch along the edge of his jaw. “And you’re annoying.”
Whatever I might have said was lost to time, because Sam decided to show up then. Younger than me by a mere ten months, Sam and I were what people sometimes snidely referred to as Irish twins. That had a darker component when they were referring to us, since it was clear to anyone with eyes that I bore little resemblance to the rest of my family.
Blonde hair french braided and gleaming, she smiled. Her missing front teeth made her look like an impish pixie. “Don’t pay any mind to Delilah. Our grandma Belle calls her ornery.”
Which is why I liked Grandma Maeve better.
Sam’s cute nose wrinkled then. “I think that just means grumpy.”
The nasty boy looked at me from under the inky fringe of his bangs when he answered her. “It does.”
I blew a raspberry. “Stating an opinion contrary to others isn’t being ornery; it’s called having a working brain. Sorry you two don’t know anything about that.”
At that Sam laughed loud and exaggerated, slapping her hand on my shoulder, hard. “She’s such a kidder.” A warning squeeze came while she gave the boy her wide, sunny smile. “I’m Samantha Baker. What’s your name?”
“Macon Saint.”
“Macon? Rhymes with bacon. I love bacon. Oh, but Saint is so cool. You look kind of like an angel. Not a pretty girl one, of course. A boy angel. Can I call you Saint? You live in that big ol’ house? It’s so pretty. Do you like peanut butter cookies? My mama just made some.”
Macon blinked under her verbal barrage, and I waited for him to lay into Sam the way he had to me, because even I was tempted after all of that spew. But he simply smiled in that lopsided way I’d soon come to know and hate. “Guess you’re never ornery, huh?”
The way he said it, with that smarmy drawl, I knew he was implying Sam was basically brainless and that he approved. But she didn’t notice.
“Nope.” She beamed. “I’m a happy girl.”
I rolled my eyes, but neither of them cared, and that had been that. Macon had gone off with Sam to eat cookies, and I’d officially become the third, unwanted wheel. I’d lost my sometime ally of a sister and gained a pain-in-the-butt, sneering boy.
Two years later, Macon shot up several inches and became the most sighed-over boy in school. And Sam became his girlfriend. That pretty much sealed it. Macon Saint was at my house more than he wasn’t. Hanging out on my couch, stealing the remote to watch sports, sitting at the dinner table, and pinging bits of food my way when my parents weren’t looking. The worst was it hurt being around him. Around them. Because I always felt lesser.
I never dated or had a boyfriend. No one asked me out, and I didn’t know how to ask anyone. I was simply Delilah, party of one. The friends I made were intimidated by Sam and Macon and did not want to hang out at my house for fear of running into them. Which meant I either went to other people’s houses or braved facing the beautiful pair on my own.
By high school, Macon and I actively bickered whenever we got within sight of each other. But it wasn’t until the end of our senior year that my dislike turned to acute loathing.
“Saint and I are going to the prom.” Sam smiled triumphantly as she opened her locker door next to mine.
I barely glanced up from shoving my violin case into my locker. “Sammy, that is a ‘well, duh’ statement if I ever heard one. Prom is over a month away; why are you even telling me this now?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Can you at least be happy for me?”
“For what? Dating the devil? Setting the bar so low the rest of your romantic life will seem like a victory?” I shrugged. “I suppose that is good planning.”
“You’re just jealous because you don’t have a date.”
“Date,” I scoffed. “Your date is a life-size Ken doll, with less personality. I’d rather go to prom alone than have to deal with that.”
“Liar. I bet if Matty Hayes asked, you’d go with him.” Damn Sam for seeing what I didn’t want her to. I had a slight crush on Matty. Sam grinned, reading me like a cheap tabloid. “He probably would if you put a little effort into your appearance.”
“Like hell he would.” The declaration was deep and confident and not mine.
My shoulders stiffened, and a cold wave of dread went over me at the sound of his distinctive voice rumbling from somewhere over my head.
Macon leaned a shoulder against the edge of my locker, his eyes mocking me from under the mop of his stupid Zac Efron–style hair. Every time I set eyes on Macon Saint, the reaction was visceral, a punch to the solar plexus. He was gorgeous, sure, but it was his eyes that did it. They burned as if he could strip the skin from my bones and rip right into the heart of me.
Mama always said I was fanciful with my words, but that was the truth of it: locking gazes with Macon was like forging into an angry storm. You’d come out of it weak, breathless, and a little bruised.
“I don’t recall asking you to join the conversation,” I said.
He snorted. “I don’t need an invitation. And you don’t stand a chance with Hayes. He likes his women stupid and thin. You know, like a Barbie.”
The thin comment cut into me. Clearly, he’d heard my Ken-doll comment as well. I didn’t give a shit and was about to say as much. But Macon wasn’t done. Standing toe to toe with me in the hall before lunch, he let that dark, wild gaze of his slide over me as his nostrils flared in disapproval. “You look like a tater tot in that dress, Baker.”
I hated that I suddenly regretted wearing my camel-colored sweaterdress with matching knee-high suede boots and the fact that I instantly felt like a potato under his assessing eye.
But I didn’t let Macon Saint see that. “Some of us know that looks aren’t everything, Con Man.” Because that’s what he was—a perfect con, tricking others into believing he should be adored. “Beauty fades, and the ugliness inside you will eventually show.”
He straightened then, looming over me with a sneer. “I suppose you’re one of those people who sees past beauty and only loves someone for their personality?”
I felt the setup. I just didn’t know where it was going or how to avoid it. I thrust my chin high and played it cool. “I am.”
He nodded as if confirming something only he knew before leaning in close. When most boys back then smelled of an overabundance of supermarket body spray, Macon smelled of cedar soap and do-me pheromones. “Tell me, Tater Tot, is it a beautiful soul you’re looking at when you moon over the half-naked-firefighters calendar you have pinned in your room?”
All the blood rushed from my face, leaving painful prickles in its wake.
Macon’s smile was cutting. “I don’t believe for a second that you like Hayes for his riveting personality. You act all high and mighty while you’re as susceptible to good looks as the rest of us. At least I have the guts to admit it.”
The worst thing? He was right. I slammed my locker shut and fled.
“It’s been fun, Tater Tot,” he called after me in a laughing voice. A loud-ass voice. And when Macon Saint spoke, people listened.
By lunchtime, snickers of “Tater Tot” could be heard all over the cafeteria. The horror only grew when grilled cheese and taters were on the lunch menu the next day. Dozens of those tiny brown pellets of potato sailed my way. I’d been labeled by the king of Shermont High, and everyone acted accordingly.
Misery followed to the point I almost refused to go to prom. It was Sam who finally stepped in, hunting me down in my bedroom to have a talk.
“Don’t let Saint get to you. He’s only having fun.” Her blue-gray eyes were guileless as she grabbed my hand. “And, really, it’s cool that he gave you a nickname. No one else has one from him. Not even me.” She frowned at that as if the thought had just occurred to her, and she didn’t much like it.
“Tater Tot is not a nickname,” I snapped. “It’s an insult, and you’re welcome to have it.”
“No.” She shook her head, sending her straight hair over her shoulders in a glinting wave. “I’d need something else. Something to signify our deep connection.”
I held in my gag admirably, but I found myself speaking without forethought. “How about ‘Mirror’? Since you both love gazing into them.”
As soon as I said it, I knew it was unkind. Sam’s pretty face flushed bright pink, and she launched herself from the foot of my bed.
“Sam, I didn’t mean—”
“No,” she cut in sharply. “You said what you said. You know, Saint is right; you can’t help but pick people apart.”
“Excuse me while I choke on the irony,” I shot back.
“Always with a joke,” Sam said, even though I hadn’t been joking. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Your problem is that you don’t know how to play the game.”
“The game? Life isn’t a game.”
“Bullshit. It always has been and always will be. Smile whether you want to or not; compliment the people in position to help you or have your back.” She counted her points off on her fingers. “When everyone assumes you’re the sweetest, most helpful, or honest person in their world, they’ll let you get away with anything.”