Oh, he knew he shouldn’t have anything to do with her. People of their caliber didn’t socialize with Waverleys. But it was no secret to his friends how he felt about her. They knew by the way he looked at her and the tragic teenage way he would act sometimes, like life without love was not worth living.

When he turned sixteen, in his one and only act of rebellion, he finally asked Sydney out. To everyone’s surprise, his parents let him go. “Let the boy have some fun,” his father had said. “She’s the pretty Waverley, and she doesn’t seem to have their touch, so she’s harmless. My boy knows what’s expected of him when he leaves school. I diddled around too, before I knew I had to settle down.”

It was the second worst day of Emma’s life.

For the next two years, Hunter John’s clique in school had no choice but to accept Sydney into their fold, because she and Hunter John were inseparable. Emma’s mother said to keep her mouth shut and her enemies close, so even though it killed her, Emma made friends with Sydney. She frequently invited her to spend the night. They had plenty of rooms, but Emma always told Sydney that she had to sleep on the floor. Sydney didn’t mind, because she hated it at the Waverley house and anything was better than that. But more often than not, Emma ended up on her bedroom floor with Sydney, talking and doing homework. Sydney was just a Waverley, but she was smart and fun and had the best taste in hairstyles. Emma would never forget when she let Sydney style her hair once, and then everything went right that day, like magic. Hunter John had even commented on how pretty she looked. Emma could never replicate it herself. There was a time when Emma actually liked Sydney.

But then, on their sleeping bags on the floor one night, Sydney said that she and Hunter John were going to do it for the first time. Emma had almost been in tears. It was more than she could bear. She’d spent years watching the boy she knew she was supposed to be with in love with someone else. Then she’d been forced to befriend the girl who had distracted him from her. Now Sydney was going to sleep with him? It was the one thing Emma knew she was better at than anyone else, and Sydney was going to get to him first. It had taken every bit of strength she had to wait until Sydney fell asleep before running to tell her mother.

She remembered how her mother held her and stroked her hair. Ariel was in bed, on her white silk sheets. Her room always smelled of candles, and the crystals on the chandelier sent sparkles of light around the room. Her mother was everything Emma wanted to be: a living, breathing fantasy.

“Now, Emma,” Ariel said easily, “you have been doing it and doing it well for over a year. All Clark women are good in bed. Why do you think we marry so well? Stop worrying. So she has him right now. You’ll have him for the rest of your life. It’s just a matter of time. You’ll always be better, and it’s good when men have a basis for comparison. That’s not to say you can’t spread a little false information. As hard as it is to believe, a lot of women are afraid of that first time.”