Chapter Text
The car smelled like stale cigarettes and the vanilla air freshener her mom kept buying in bulk from the dollar store, the combination making Sloane's head throb in slow, steady pulses against the window. She watched the houses get bigger as they drove deeper into the neighborhood, proper houses, not the duplex she'd grown up in, not the apartment complex with the broken gate and the guy who always sat on the stairs asking for cigarettes he never actually smoked.
"You need to say thank you," her mom said, not looking away from the road. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "Your aunt didn't have to do this."
Sloane didn't answer. She pressed her forehead harder against the glass, feeling the vibration of the engine against her temple. The heat from outside was already leaking through, California autumn still clinging to summer like a bad habit. She could see her reflection in the side mirror, dark circles under her eyes, hair she'd dyed black three weeks ago already fading to something brown and muddy at the roots. She looked like shit. She knew she looked like shit.
"Sloane."
"I heard you," she said, but her voice came out flat, bored. That was the trick she'd learned, sound like you don't care about anything, and eventually, you don't.
Her mom's jaw tightened. They didn't talk about the expulsion. They didn't talk about Mr. Henley's nose, the way it had crunched under her fist, the way the blood had felt warm and shocking against her knuckles. They didn't talk about the suspension that turned into expulsion that turned into her mom crying on the phone to her sister in a voice Sloane wasn't supposed to hear through the thin walls.
The Perez house came into view at the end of the cul-de-sac, and Sloane felt her stomach drop. It was exactly like she'd remembered from Thanksgiving three years ago, back when her mom and Aunt Suze were still pretending to like each other for more than holidays. White stucco, terracotta roof, the kind of manicured lawn that looked fake from the street. A BMW sat in the driveway next to a Lexus that probably cost more than every car her mom had ever owned combined.
Her mom killed the engine. The silence felt heavy, expectant.
"Get your bag," she said.
Sloane pulled her duffel from the backseat—one bag, that was all she had room for. Clothes stuffed in without folding, her laptop, a shoebox of photos she hadn't looked at in two years. Everything else was in storage. Everything else was gone.
The front door opened before they could knock. Aunt Sonia stood there in a silk robe, hair curled and sprayed into submission, the smell of expensive perfume hitting Sloane like a wall.
"Oh my God, you're here!" Her aunt's voice was pitched high, theatrical, the same voice Sloane remembered from childhood phone calls. "Look at you! How big you got!"
She pulled Sloane into a hug that smelled like hairspray and mimosas. Sloane stood stiff, arms at her sides, watching over her aunt's shoulder as her mom hovered on the threshold with that apologetic smile she'd been wearing for three weeks.
"Sonia, thank you so much," her mom said, and her voice had that note in it, gratitude mixed with shame, the sound of someone who needed something. "I don't know what we would've done without you."
"Don't be silly, you're family." Sonia pulled back, holding Sloane at arm's length, studying her face like she was looking for something. Her smile didn't falter, but something flickered in her eyes—assessment, maybe, or judgment. "Come in, come in. Ted! Ted, they're here!"
The house was exactly what Sloane expected. White everything, white couches, white carpet, white walls with framed photos of Maddy at various ages, all perfect teeth and pageant hair. The air conditioning was cranked so high it raised goosebumps on her arms. Somewhere in the back, she could hear a basketball game on TV, the announcers' voices muffled and distant.
"Tyler, take their bags," Suze called, and Sloane's uncle appeared from the kitchen, beer in hand, smiling that easy, empty smile of men who never had to worry about where they'd sleep tomorrow.
"Welcome, welcome," he said, clapping Sloane on the shoulder hard enough to make her stumble. "Good to have you, kid."
Sloane mumbled something that might've been thanks. She kept her eyes on the stairs, the second-floor landing where she knew the bedrooms were. She could feel it already—the weight of being the guest, the charity case, the problem child deposited on their doorstep like a package they hadn't ordered.
"Where's Maddy?" her mom asked, and Sloane's shoulders tensed.
"Upstairs," Sonia said, waving a hand like she was swatting a fly. "Maddy! Maddy, come down here! Your cousin's here!"
Silence from above. Then footsteps, slow and deliberate, heels clicking against hardwood. Sloane looked up.
Maddy Perez descended the stairs like she was entering a scene she hadn't rehearsed for. She wore silk pajama shorts and a matching camisole, her hair pulled back in a claw clip with pieces artfully falling around her face. No makeup, but she didn't need it—her skin was that perfect, poreless texture that Sloane had always associated with girls who'd never had to worry about anything more serious than a bad hair day.
She stopped three steps from the bottom, one hand on the railing, and looked at Sloane with eyes that were somehow both empty and calculating.
"Hey," Maddy said. Flat. Distant. The word landed between them like a stone.
"Hi," Sloane managed.
"Maddy, be nice," Suze chirped, oblivious or pretending to be. "Sloane's going to be staying with us for a while. I need you to show her to the guest room, okay? Help her get settled?"
Maddy's expression didn't change, but something shifted in her posture—a subtle tightening, a drawing inward. She looked at her mom with that look Sloane recognized from her own mother, the look that said you're embarrassing me and I hate you in equal measure.
"Fine," Maddy said. She turned without waiting, started back up the stairs. "Come on."
Sloane glanced at her mom, but her mom was already deep in conversation with Suze, already laughing at something, already forgetting she had a daughter standing there with one bag and no backup plan.
She followed Maddy up the stairs.
The second floor was darker, hallway lights dim, Maddy's perfume lingering in the air—something floral and expensive, cloying in the enclosed space. Sloane kept her eyes on the back of Maddy's head, the perfect curve of her neck, the way she moved like she owned the air around her.
"So," Maddy said, not turning around. "You punched a teacher."
Sloane's stomach tightened. "Yeah."
"That's fucking crazy." Maddy's voice was neutral, neither impressed nor judgmental. Just stating a fact. She stopped at a door at the end of the hall, pushed it open. "This is you."
The room was small but clean, a single bed with a white comforter, a desk by the window, a closet with empty hangers waiting. It looked like a hotel room, temporary and impersonal. Sloane stepped inside, dropped her bag on the bed. The mattress didn't give at all—too new, too firm.
"Thanks," Sloane said.
Maddy leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. Up close, Sloane could see the faint smudge of mascara under Maddy's eyes, the slight puffiness that suggested she'd been crying or smoking or both. She looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.
"How long?" Maddy asked.
"What?"
"How long are you staying?"
Sloane shrugged, trying to match Maddy's indifference. "Till my mom finds a place, I guess. Or till I turn eighteen."
Maddy studied her for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind her eyes. Then she pushed off the doorframe, turned to leave.
"Whatever," she said. "Don't touch my stuff. Don't go in my room. There's rules here, okay? My parents act chill but they're not. Keep your shit clean and don't make noise after ten."
"Okay," Sloane said.
Maddy was already walking away, heels clicking down the hall. Sloane followed her to the doorway, watching her go. Maddy stopped at a door three down on the left—her room, Sloane guessed—and pushed it open.
"Took you long enough," a voice said from inside, and Sloane froze.
The voice was rough, smoker's rasp, female. Maddy didn't answer, just slipped inside and started to close the door. But before it shut completely, Sloane caught a glimpse, movement on the bed, someone sitting up, tangled dark curly hair and tan skin and eyes that met Sloane's for just a fraction of a second through the narrowing gap.
The door clicked shut.
Sloane stood in the hallway, listening. She couldn't make out words, just the low murmur of voices, Maddy's higher pitch and that other voice, rougher, saying something that made Maddy laugh—a real laugh, not the performative giggle she'd used downstairs.
She went back into her room and sat on the edge of the too-firm bed. Through the wall, she could hear the muffled sounds of two people who thought they were alone, who thought the walls were thicker than they were.
Sloane lay back and stared at the ceiling, counting the seconds until she could pretend to be asleep.