Falling - On the Banks of Lake Saint Clare (Falling - Book One) (3 page)

The girls soon followed and also started going through my clothes. Then they switched to Rachel’s.

“Rachel has such great clothes,” Erica said, pulling out a dress. “Would she kill me if I wore this?”

“Probabl
y, but she’s out of town for a while
. It has something to do with her Make-me-a-model training camp. Personally I think she needs to go to a Make-me-a-human training camp, but that was filled up already.”

“Really?”
Abbie
asked confused. “I’ve never heard of that?”

I laughed, “Wear it. It’s fine. Just make sure you don’t show any trace of wearing it
or she will kill me
.”

“I thought Rachel was going to college
?
”
Abbie
asked, looking at one her 400 pictures on her side of the room. “She is so gorgeous. Probably would be a waste of time to go to college. She could easily be a model.”

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to hear them talk about Rachel anymore. “She might be on the outside….” I didn’t bother finishing. They didn’t really care to hear about my psycho sister that has the entire town fooled.

I started brushing my hair.

Abbie
glanced over, “I love your hair, Alex. It is so gorgeous.”
Abbie
had a thing about compliments. She was the queen of compliments, and an authority on love. Her favorite two lines were, “You are so gorgeous” and “I know he loves you.” She had me convinced that our 3rd grade gym teacher was in love with me because I was gorgeous. “You look exactly like Avril Lavigne, before she became normal.” For a moment I wondered if I looked abnormal, but knew
Abbie
didn’t always word things the way they were meant to be said. You had to decipher a lot of her sentences. I did like my hair, I had to admit. It was straight long light brown and had some natural blonde highlights.

“Which one of the Kardasians do I look like in this dress?”
Kaitlyn
twirled around.

“You don’t look like any of them. You are blonde,” I said, watching her almost fall from spinning.

“I meant which one I look likeish? “

“Likeish isn’t a word,” I laughed, but knew I had to play along or I’d hurt her feelings. “
K
hloe,” I guessed. I didn’t even know anything about the Kardasians, but I remembered
Kaitlyn
saying she was her favorite. That was the one thing that irritated Erica and me about
Abbie
and
Kaitlyn
, was their Kardashian obsession.

“For real?”
Kaitlyn
squealed. “Sweet!!!!”

“I’m going out there. You girls ready?” I asked, watching
Abbie
spray her 5
th
layer of hairspray. She could clear a room in ten minutes with her spray usage.

“You,” Erica pointed at her, “are the soul reason for global warming.” She clutched her throat and started gagging. “I thought the natural look was in,” she said, heading out the door.

We went into the family room. Most of the team was already there. I didn’t see Michael though. My heart sank and I felt more disappointed tha
n
I have ever felt.

I saw Brad playing pool and after his shot he caught me looking at him. “Dang it,” I thought. “He is so going to want to talk to me.” I nudged Erica, “I think Brad is looking at you,” I lied, feeling guilty that I was using her to save me.

She happily took the hint and headed that way.

Safe for a bit.

“Alex,” I heard Mom yell from the kitchen, “Come help me, please.”

I started helping her dig things out of the fridge, “Did Dad
tell
you there are two new players on the team?”

“Yeah,” she said, “He said they are really good.”

“What else did he say about them?’ I asked, wanting to know as much about Michael as I could.

“I don’t know. I don’t always listen,” she smiled. “You know Dad’s world, work and baseball, no other topics. I have learned to listen without hearing. That happens after 22 years with the same person.”

“Really?” I couldn’t tell if she was joking.

“Where is Erica?” she asked
,
looking around the family room. She knew Erica was a bit on the boy crazy side and always wanted to make sure she wasn’t sneaking off with a boy.

“She’s with Brad,” I pointed.

“Good. He’s safe.”

Safe was the last word I would use to describe Brad.

I looked around the room and saw
Kaitlyn
and
Abbie
watching TV, oblivious to the party going on around them and Erica’s non-stop complimenting Brad on his pool playing ability.

“You playing the winner?” Brad asked as I walked by.

I shook my head and went to answer the doorbell.

I opened the door and saw Michael and Derek standing two feet from me.

I took a deep breath, “Hey! You made it.”

“We did,” he smiled.

I am so loving that adorable crooked smile!
I thought, while he was standing in front of me.

“I had to drop my mother off at the movies so I could have the car. Hers is in the shop. Sorry we are late.”

“You aren’t,” I smiled, knowing I had this drop-dead gorgeous guy in my house for the evening.

“Hey Guys,” I heard my dad behind me. He walked over to Michael and started talking baseball. Michael looked at me and shrugged, almost begging me to rescue him.

“Your dad looks like he’s in love,” Mom smiled, seeing him entertaining his new player.

“He’s not the only one,” I sighed.

“What?” she questioned, sounding more concerned than I wanted.

I laughed, “I was joking! I don’t even know him.” I hurried off before I said anything else stupid.

I watched Michael the entire night with my dad.
Dad had
him trapped with his endless sports talk. I was so upset that I didn’t get to say one thing to him until he was leaving. He had to leave to pick his mother up. He had an early morning so he wasn’t going to be able to come back.

I walked into the kitchen after everyone had gone home and heard my dad talking about Michael and Derek. “Great athletes,” he said. “You don’t know how lucky we are to have them on the team. This is what I needed to win the championship.”

I tried to act like I didn’t care what he was saying while I fixed a snack. I swear my dad was star struck. He went on and on about how great the boys were
, “
Very respectful, polite, from a great home. I don’t quite know the reason Derek is living with Michael’s family,” he said
.
I was so jealous that my dad knew more about Michael than I did. I figured I better stop caring. It was obvious that he didn’t like me or think of me the way I thought of him.

I sighed, “I’m off to bed.”

“Night, sweetheart,” Mom said, blowing me a kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I walked into my bedroom, loving the fact that Rachel wasn’t home. I hated sharing a room with her. We always had our own rooms until about two months before. My Dad decided to redo Rachel’s room so it would be nice when she visits from college. I had no idea why he couldn’t wait for her to leave and then do it, but then figured he was afraid he wouldn’t do it to her satisfaction. Either that or he wanted a project for her and him to do together before she left. Two months, my mom kept saying over and over, every time Rachel threw a tantrum. I slept in the family room a lot so I didn’t have to listen to her talk to her boyfriend, Tony all night. “Stop listening to me Little Bitch,” she said, every time she was on the phone with him. I had no desire to listen to their conversations. Ever. He was the biggest player in town. I always thought she was using him as much as he was using her. They were both each other’s eye candy. Both were wannabe models and both shallow as hell. All they talked about was fashion and
New York
.

One of the worst days ever in my life was when Rachel and I were in the kitchen, “Tony said that you are so ugly,” she said, getting a snack from the fridge. “He said that he feels sorry for me since I have to live in the same house
with
someone so hideous.” I knew Tony would never know a word that big. “Tony and I both are going to be rich models and you will be a 7-11 cashier and be 50 years old and never have had a boyfriend. Tony said you’re going to die a virgin because of your ugliness.”

“It’s sad that all you two have to talk about is me. I do not envy your relationship.”

She grabbed my arm, digging her nails into the skin, glaring down at me, “Don’t you ever talk to me like that Little Bitch, or I will punch your face in.”

She let go of my arm, pushed me, and walked toward the family room.

I knew to drop it, knew I had to shut up, even told myself, “shut the hell up Alex, she’s 8 inches taller than you. She’s hit you hundreds of times and there is nothing you can do about it. It’s no match,” but instead I said, “You know, Rachel, 75
percent
of male models are gay, (which I had just made up), and maybe, just maybe Tony is.”

She slung one of her dance trophies across the room, hitting my head and putting a huge hole in the wall. She ran to Dad crying that I was a brat and she wanted me unadopted. That was the day I found out I was adopted. That was also the day my Dad actually took three minutes
(just three though)
away from Rachel to worry about my feelings.

I figured the biggest reason Rachel hated me was when I was twelve I was approached by a well-known modeling agency to be the “fresh face girl” for a new scrubbing cleanser for teens. I did the one job and hated every minute of it. I had heard Mom tell Dad that I had made enough money on that ad to pay for
most of
my college. The agency called a few times to do another shoot, but I told my mom it was unbearable and I really didn’t want to do it unless they needed the money. She never said another word about it. Rachel heard about me turning it down and instantly decided she wanted to take my spot. Thing was, they didn’t want Rachel.

I’ve never been bitter at the fact my dad worships Rachel. Maybe a tiny bit
, but
Mom made up for it most of the time. When finding out about my adoption, it wasn’t like in movies where the girl cries for days and has to find her real parents. I thought wow, that’s crazy insane. The guilt trip presents came full force for about a week until I finally made them realize that I wasn’t scarred or suicidal. I was mad that Rachel used it to get her way and that they could keep such a secret for 16 years. It also proved to me just how cold-hearted Rachel was. By knowing she was going to get grounded (but probably only an hour) for throwing the trophy, she used the highly classified secret to bring attention to me for a bit, so they forgot about the trophy. She was a pure conniving genius.

Chapter
4

Every Friday and Saturday night for as long as I can remember, the three girls and I would go to
Dairy Lane
to hang out and watch the cruisers. That was what teens did in our town.

Noel had a population of 1600 people, but was in the middle of the county, so all the teens from the surrounding towns came to ours to cruise. It was the same loop my parents and grandparents cruised when they were teens.

The “loop” started at
Dairy Lane
, then went to Deaton's Diner known by locals as “the Double D,” across the street to my family’s grocery store, and then back to
Dairy Lane
. There were cliques that would stay parked at certain spots. The jocks stayed in the
Dairy Lane
parking lot. The socials sat at our store and the creepers or misfits all hung around the Double D. I had no idea what group we would fit into because we never cruised. We always sat and watched the cruisers.

“Big question
,
” Erica
announced
, “Say we ever start cruising, what clique would we belong in? I swear if it’s Double D’s, I will Die!”

“We don’t have to belong to a clique
,” I said.
“
We can just cruise and if someone wants to talk we can pull over and talk. We won’t sign a legal contract locking us into a certain group.”

“You’re a bitch,” Erica said.

I started laughing, “You are making this a big deal. It’s not. We are our own clique. Dan even gave us our own booth.”

Dan was the closing manager at Dairy Lane and Erica flirted with him so much that he makes sure no one, and I am stressing no one sits in our booth on Friday and Saturday night. It is the best booth, with a huge window beside it so we never miss what’s going on outside. I always wondered if he had a calendar in his office
marking
down the day
s till
Erica turn
s
legal.