“Are you okay?” Court asks.

“Yeah, I just had that horrible feeling of being watched, do you know what I mean?” I wrinkle my nose, hating that I sound like an idiot.

“Oh my gosh, I get that all the time when I get out of the pool at night and have to walk back up to the house. It’s creepy.”

I can’t help but smile at my sweet, ditsy friend. “Really creepy,” I laugh, stabbing my fork into my lasagna and ignoring the lingering sensation of eyes on me.

4

SEBASTIAN

The information Clay gave me about my little bird is running on a loop through my head.

Starling Kennedy, sixteen, born September 4 in Maine. Her mother’s name is Cassidy Clark, thirty-two, author writing successful thriller novels. Father, Derek Kennedy, forty, lives in Maine, owns and runs a lobster fishing boat. Starling lives with her mother in a small house slap bang on the border between North and South Acres. Their mortgage is more than they can afford and Cassidy takes other writing jobs in between publishing novels to help pay the bills and her credit card debt. They don’t own a car, although both mother and daughter have their driving permits. Starling works at the Yummy Tummy diner in South Acres and rides the bus to and from work. She works three or four nights a week and most weekends for minimum wage. She must give all her wages to her mom because she only has twenty-five dollars in her checking account.

Her parents divorced when she was two years old, around the time Cassidy published her first successful book and bought the house they currently live in when they moved to Green Acres. Starling only sees her father once a year for a couple of weeks during the summer break, when she works on his fishing boat.

She has one friend, Courtney Ortega, fifteen, daughter of Larrissa and Michael Ortega. Cheerleader. They live in a decent house in North Acres, and Courtney has a substantial trust fund which she will gain access to once she graduates from high school.

Courtney’s family driver collected Starling from her home and drove her to and from school every day during their freshmen year. Now Courtney has her driver’s license, she instead picked Starling up from her home this morning.

Starling is an average student, passing all of her classes with an average of a B on most assignments. Her mother paid two years tuition up front when she enrolled Starling in the school and if their financial situation does not improve, my little bird will have to transfer to the hellhole public school in South Acres for her junior and senior years.

All of these facts paint a picture of the girl I’ve been obsessing over for the last year, but even knowing all these things about her, I still don’t know her.

I don’t know if she keeps her hair long and wears it in a braid every day because she doesn’t want to waste money on a haircut, or if she just likes it that way. I don’t know if she resents her father for never coming here to visit her or if she’s happy she’s only forced to see him once a year. I don’t know if her creamy thighs are as smooth as they appear, or how they’ll look with bite marks all over from where I plan to bury my head between them and lick her virgin pussy.