Austin had once taken me to that party in Chesapeake Manor, where all the officers’ kids were partying. He told me that everyone our age was drinking, that I should just relax. Then he passed out in one of the bedrooms with some girl from a high school across town and I was forced to sleep there, surrounded by loud, rowdy, belligerent boys. That’s when one of them, the one who called me “Austin’s sister” and had too deep a voice for a high school kid, swore I had a crush on him and shoved his tongue down my throat—repeatedly. Until I started crying and he got “weirded out.”

Funny how my telling him to stop, my constant “No, no, no, please no!” didn’t do it. Nope, it was the salty, hot tears streaming down my face that finally got him to go away. I guess he didn’t like the way they tasted. Eventually I fell asleep on a couch listening to some war video game being played in the other room. Austin never apologized the next morning. He never asked how I had slept or where. He just kissed that random girl on the cheek and made a joke that she and I both laughed at, and then we Ubered home like nothing ever happened. Our dad yelled at me, not at him, and we both got grounded for a week, but three days in, Austin got to hang out with his friends, and since I didn’t have any, I was stuck there.

I clicked on Austin’s profile and thought about calling him again, but then Elodie opened the front door and surprised me. I hadn’t even realized I was on my front porch.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My house is small: when you go through the front door, you’re already in the living room. That’s one of the things I like about it, the way it’s all cozy and warm, everything there waiting for me. No surprises, except the faulty electrical work that I still haven’t been able to fix correctly. The lights and TV were on when I got home that night, the room filled with the voice of Olivia Pope. And there was Elodie, standing at the door, greeting me with a nervous smile. Something was up.