Never Ever

VIKING

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New York, New York 10014

First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

Copyright © 2016 by Sara Saedi

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eBook ISBN 9780698197022

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

To my parents, Ali and Shoreh Saedi.
For all of your sacrifices, encouragement, and love.

last day

wylie
Dalton didn't know it yet, but in precisely two hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-two seconds, her life would change forever. All that she once thought was real and true about the world would quickly fade away. Even the laws of gravity would no longer apply. Unlike every other detail of her life, the particulars of that day were something she wouldn't be allowed to share on any of her social media accounts. They would have to be kept a secret till the day she died.

Years from now, when Wylie relived the events of the day in her head, she would remember the weather was strangely warm for February in New York City. It was the kind of day when everyone strips off their winter coats and secretly admits that maybe climate change isn't so bad after all—minus the hurricanes and tornadoes and drowning polar bears. She'd also remember it was her seventeenth birthday. The first birthday when her mom forgot to make
pancakes for breakfast and stick candles in them like she did every other year. These days it was a miracle if her mother even got out of bed. And anyway, the tradition felt childish and Wylie wasn't a child anymore. She hadn't been one for a long time. By the end of the night, she would no longer be a normal teenager either.

If she had known what was coming, Wylie might've done more with her last hours of normalcy than melt chocolate over a hot stove while trying to ignore the fact that her parents were berating each other upstairs. As her dad's voice got a touch louder, Wylie poured scalding batter into a ramekin dish, smiled brightly into her webcam, and silently prayed the audio from the fight wasn't loud enough to be recorded. It was so typical of her parents to strike up an argument just when she needed the house to be quiet. Plus, the bickering was currently at its most annoying decibel level: loud enough to be disruptive, but too quiet to make out exactly what was being said.

“Just place your ramekin in the oven for twenty minutes and you've got yourself a hot, gooey, chocolate soufflé. Or, as I prefer to call it, a chocolate volcano.”

Wylie spoke the words into her webcam, but before she could get them out completely, her mom sobbed and her dad yelled out several choice expletives she could now decipher perfectly. Wylie barely flinched as she deleted the video. She couldn't teach anyone to cook with her parents dropping F-bombs in the background. Maybe a better upload would be
How to Deal with Your Insanely Dysfunctional Mom and Dad.
Wylie shut her laptop, stuck a spoon in the
batter, and trekked upstairs to the disaster area known as her bedroom.

Every inch of Wylie's desk was covered with homework assignments and textbooks. The bed hadn't been made in weeks. The hamper was filled to the brim with dirty clothes, including her sweaty basketball uniform. But keeping a clean bedroom was low on her priority list. Who had the time, with school, basketball practice, piano lessons, SAT prep classes, and her cooking channel?

“You're too scheduled,” her guidance counselor at school lectured her. “You're a teenager. You have the rest of your life to feel overextended and stressed out. At this rate, you'll get wrinkles before you turn eighteen. You have to give something up.”

School,
Wylie wanted to respond.
I'll give up school.

At least now that her cooking video was a bust, Wylie had the rare window of opportunity to take a nap. She curled up under her flannel sheets and closed her eyes just as she heard her dad yell, “I will not stand here and let you blame me for your mistakes!”

You're both to blame!
Wylie wanted to yell back.

Most people wouldn't be able to fall asleep with their parents in the middle of a shouting match, but it was white noise to Wylie—sort of like those machines that make the sound of waves crashing to help lull you to sleep.

That hadn't always been the case. When she was a kid, the fights had knocked the wind right out of her. Wylie's younger brothers, Joshua and Micah, would tap on her door and seek shelter in her room. They were little then, but it
was still a tight squeeze for all three of them to sleep in her twin bed together. Even when they were children, she knew to lie and tell them everything would be okay:
Sometimes grown-ups fight.

But as the years went on, the arguments became so frequent that the Dalton siblings stayed in their separate bedrooms, no longer fazed by the emotional confessions, the empty threats, or the varying degrees of passive-aggression. Wylie became so good at falling asleep to the timbre of their fights, she dreaded evenings when her dad had to work late and their Upper East Side brownstone became eerily quiet. Those were the nights Wylie lay in bed awake, her thoughts drowning out the other sounds of the city she'd become accustomed to: car alarms, fire trucks, muffled jazz music coming from the home of their next-door neighbors.

What kept her tossing and turning was the nagging fear that one day she would be old, just like her parents. She would grow up to be just as damaged and bitter as they were. The thought of looking in the mirror years from now and seeing her mom or dad staring back at her was enough to keep Wylie up all night.

A knock on the door put an untimely end to Wylie's nap.

“Wylie, can I come in?” her dad asked.

“Am I allowed to say no?” she answered.

“No.”

“Fine, door's open.”

Her dad walked in, looking different to Wylie from the last time she'd seen him, a few days before. There was more gray in his hair, and his eyes looked red and puffy from
what she guessed were some sleepless nights. He held a perfectly wrapped present in his hand. Wylie was tempted to ask if his assistant had picked it out.

“Happy birthday, sweet pea,” he said, handing her the gift.

“I'm too old to be called that, but thanks,” Wylie said as she placed the present on her bedside table.

“Aren't you going to open it?” her dad asked.

“Maybe later.”

Wylie wasn't sure if it was a birthday gift or a bribe, but either way, she preferred to open it in private. If she liked it too much, then it might absolve her father of some of his guilt.

“Wylie, you know . . . if there's anything you want to talk about, I'm here for you.”

“Actually,” Wylie said, “you're not here. You're living in a hotel room.”

Two weeks before, her mom had called for a Dalton family meeting, and as they all gathered in the living room, she announced (somewhat melodramatically, Wylie thought) that their dad would be moving out of the house, because
he
wanted a divorce. Wylie's mom openly wept, as though she were an innocent bystander in her failed marriage, but Wylie knew that wasn't the case. Over the years, she had witnessed her mom slowly inch away from her dad. The occasional “I love you” would go unreturned or her hand would pull away as soon as her dad reached for it. That was why she couldn't muster any sympathy or words of comfort for either of her parents. It wasn't until Wylie was alone in her room that she collapsed on her bed and cried her eyes
out. And then she promptly wiped away the tears and buried her face in her SAT workbook.

As if that wasn't enough, all this came in the weeks leading up to her brother Joshua's sentencing. But even with their family in turmoil, they still planned to celebrate Wylie's birthday together with dinner at Le Bernardin followed by frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity. According to her mom, it was just a case of “unfortunate timing” that this would be their last night together before Joshua got shipped off to juvie.

Wylie and her brothers had always been a package deal. Wherever one Dalton sibling went, the others followed. But this time, that would be impossible. And it was all Wylie's fault.

“How's Joshua really holding up?” her dad asked, glancing at Wylie's bulletin board covered with photos of her friends.

“Okay, I guess.”

“I know you love this house and your room and that there are a million reasons to stay with your mom. But just so you know, I've signed a lease on an apartment with enough space for you and your brothers. It's close to your school—oh and here's the best part: it's got a big kitchen with a brand-new Viking stove and plenty of counter space. Perfect for us to cook together. Think about it.”

If the same opportunity had been posed to Wylie a year before, she would have agreed to live with her dad without hesitation. He attempted a smile.

“Great sound system, too—I can just see us making
some homemade pizza, singing along to a little Simon and Garfunkel—”

She cut him off. “Is your girlfriend going to be living there, too?”

“I don't know what your mom's been telling you, but—”

“She hasn't told me anything. It's amazing what you can find out about a person with one Google search.”

Her dad loosened his tie as beads of sweat formed on his brow. He cleared his throat.

“Look, Wylie. I've made some mistakes as a husband, but I don't want it to change how you feel about me as a dad. I wish I could explain things better, but there's a lot you won't understand about marriage until you're older.”

She hated when adults said stuff like that. If they were so wise and evolved, then why did they always seem to make a mess of everything?

“I should get ready for dinner,” Wylie said. “Thanks again for the gift. I'll see you downstairs.”

As soon as her dad left, Wylie jumped out of bed, examined her face in the mirror, and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Her normally olive complexion had turned a pale yellow from the months of dreary winter weather. She quickly applied a generous amount of blush to her cheekbones and covered her lips with a coat of coconut-flavored gloss. Now for an outfit change. She threw the doors to her closet open, gave the pile of clothes a once-over and opted for a navy dress to throw over the leggings she was already wearing. It wasn't her favorite dress, but she knew it was clean. She finished the outfit off with a pair of brown leather booties.
Heels weren't an option. They were far too impractical for climbing down a rickety fire escape.

Wylie knocked on the wall three times, and Joshua and Micah tiptoed into her room. Micah was in his regular uniform: combat boots, black cut-offs, and a skull-and-bones T-shirt. Joshua wore jeans, a Henley, and a knitted cardigan with suede elbow pads. Wylie smiled at her brothers and tried to shake off the anger she was still feeling from the conversation with her dad.

“This is it,” Wylie announced mournfully. “Our last night together for who knows how long.”

“Stop,” Joshua insisted. “I don't want a pity party. It's your birthday, and all we're going to do is celebrate. And anyway, I'll be in good company. A lot of great men have served time, so don't waste any energy feeling bad for me.”

It was so like Joshua to worry about everyone else. Wylie liked to think that one day the accident would no longer be part of his legacy and that her brother would still fulfill his childhood aspiration of running for president. His future campaign advisor would find a way to spin things so that Joshua's error in judgment would make him more grounded and relatable. And maybe even the girl they'd put in the coma would wake up tomorrow and forgive them. Years later, they would arrange for her to go on the campaign trail with him. “If I can forgive,” she would say from her wheelchair, “America can, too.” Joshua's dreams of becoming the leader of the free world would come true. He would single-handedly clean up Washington and change the world.

Wylie quietly opened her bedroom window, and she and her brothers carefully climbed out onto the fire escape.
They sat there for a while, passing around the chocolate batter that had never made it into the oven. Even though it was February, the air felt warm. Wylie fanned herself with her purse, certain that in a few hours the temperature would drop drastically and she would freeze her ass off.

“What did Dad have to say?” Joshua asked.

“Nothing important. Just that I'm too young to understand anything.”

“Then what's his excuse?” Micah mumbled. He licked the batter off the spoon. “Why does this taste so spicy?”

“I added a pinch of cayenne pepper,” Wylie admitted. “Maybe more than a pinch.”

“Would it kill you to actually follow a recipe?” Joshua piped in.

“I always follow the recipes. I just like to experiment, that's all.”

“Maybe we should have gotten you a cookbook,” Joshua said as he handed her two birthday gifts, wrapped in the finance section from the
New York Times.

Wylie never understood why some people carefully peeled away at gift wrap. As far as she was concerned, birthday presents were meant to be torn open. She opened Micah's present first. It was a comic book he had created himself. She flipped through it. The Dalton siblings were the heroes, all with unique superpowers. Joshua could literally kill people with kindness, Micah could become invisible, and Wylie could control people's minds. The villains bore a striking resemblance to their parents, of course.