The Academy - Friends vs. Family (17 page)

“Yeah,” Nathan said, seeming to understand my thoughts. He beamed
at Jessica, nodding to her. “She picked up that we were in nettle. Otherwise I
think we would have gotten it worse.”

Jessica’s cheeks turn as pink as the primrose still in her hair.
“It wasn’t a big deal.”

Erica shared a pleased smile and collected her daughter by the
shoulders for a hug. “I’m glad you were with them.”

My heart swelled. Was that good? I was envious of how easily Erica
hugged her daughter. I wanted a hug, too, but I quelled my desires by focusing
on Nathan’s touch on my leg.

Luke fell into another chair, wiping at his brow. “Let’s not let
Micah lead the way next time. I bet those nettles grew around our ankles just to
bite him.”

Erica popped him on the hand with her palm. “Don’t say things like
that. You all should get along.”

“It’d be easier if he was trying,” Luke complained. “You should
have heard the fuss he made about Sang.”

Nathan finished up my legs but kept my foot in his lap as he sat
back and replaced the lid on the lotion bottle. “Well, he can complain all he
wants. Sang lives on this street now, too. If he doesn’t want to hang out, he
can go home.”

“He’ll miss out,” Gabriel said, scratching at his ear behind the
black rings, “when we play basketball at Sang’s.”

Like that was a possibility. Why did he even suggest it?

Erica smiled. “That sounds like fun. What are you all doing
tonight? Are you guys staying for dinner?”

“No,” Nathan said. I was grateful he answered because I wasn’t
sure how to say no to her after being so nice. I didn’t want to bother her any
more, either. He patted at my foot. I dropped it to the floor and he stood up.
“We should get home. Homework.”

Erica laughed. “I love you guys. I never have to remind you.” She
hugged Nathan, wrapping her arms around his neck and plopping a kiss on his
cheek. Nathan’s cheeks tinted red but he seemed used to this attention, patting
at her arm in an awkward way to hug her back. “Make sure Sang gets home safe.”
She turned to me. “You should come over this weekend. We’ll have a fun night
together.”

I felt my heart racing with happiness. “Really?” I asked. It had
me confused when she said night. I wondered what exactly she meant. She wanted
me over for dinner?

She smiled and nodded. “And we may let the boys come, too,” she
said, glancing at the others. “If you all will behave and keep her out of
trouble.”

“We’ll see if Trouble can keep herself out of trouble,” Gabriel
said, hooking an arm around my neck.

I
pulled a face at him. How much worse trouble could I get into now?

N
aked

That evening, I got back later than I normally did since my dad
was gone. Nathan was going to take Gabriel home as soon as Kota got back. Luke
followed me home and climbed up the back wall to the roof to get to my window
and wait.

I walked in and paused when I spotted Marie in the kitchen. She
huddled over a pot of macaroni, stirring in cheese mix and milk. I caught how
she looked different with the makeup she was wearing. Wasn’t she worried about
wearing makeup in the house? Our mother would see it and she’d be on her knees
for sure. I wasn’t sure if the guys would pull her out, too.

There was something else off about Marie, but I couldn’t put my
finger on it. She ignored me as she stirred so I didn’t stop to ask. I wasn’t
sure what to say.

I padded my way up the stairs and pushed the door open. The door
caught on something behind it and stopped short. I had to shove to squeeze
myself inside.

A clump of clothes collected right behind the door. I hurriedly
shut the door and locked it. When I turned, Luke was already inside, the window
open behind him. My heart thundered, worried because of the concerned look over
his face.

He slipped to the open closet door and looked in. I closed the
window behind him. I came back to puzzle over the haphazard pile of clothes on
the floor. Did Marie go through my things again? It wouldn’t have been the
first time.

My heart stopped. I went for the attic door. It was closed but I
peeked in, checking for the cell phone. It was still there where I hid it in
the wall.

I breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Your clothes are gone,” Luke whispered to me, still standing
inside the closet door.

My eyes widened. “What?” I shifted away from the attic, closing it
and stepped up behind him.

The closet had been emptied out, some remnants piled on the floor
at the bottom, mostly underwear and bras that were previously piled up on the
shelf in the closet.

Luke helped me as I picked up the spilled clothes on the floor,
dumping them on my bed. It looked like Marie’s clothes but there were some
others mixed in that I didn’t recognize. I separated the t-shirts and jeans in
an effort to shuffle through them. My blouses and skirts were missing. Nathan’s
and Luke’s shirts that they’d given me were gone.

Luke shifted on his feet, rubbing at the back of his head. “Did
your mother do this?”

I bit my lip, my brain churning but I shook my head. “No,” I said.
It didn’t feel like something my mother did. My mother wasn’t interested in
what we wore usually. My father bought clothes in bulk once or twice a year,
from places I didn’t know but I had guessed were garage sales. He bought a
variety of sizes and Marie and I sorted out what we could wear between us.

Luke leaned into me, finding my hand and squeezing it. “Who?”

I shook my head again, blinking. “Marie, I guess,” I said,
blushing. “I don’t know. She doesn’t really like the clothes I wear and they
don’t fit her. She’s downstairs. I’ll go talk to her.” It surprised me. She
once in a while borrowed a shirt but it seemed odd she would take out all of my
own clothes and leave hers in my room.

He nodded. He couldn’t follow me now. “I’ll wait in the attic,” he
said. “But come get me as soon as you can figure out what’s going on. Don’t bother
your mom about this, even if this was her.”

I thumped my way back down the stairs to the kitchen. Marie had
her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail away from her narrow eyes. She sat on
the counter, swinging her legs as she ate from a bowl of macaroni and cheese. I
realized she was now wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt I’d never seen her
wear before and that was what was bugging me earlier. The t-shirt was a simple
soft green, with a low scooped neck and looked too small on her frame and the
jeans were tight.

“Where’s my clothes?” I asked her. “Why are your clothes on my
bed?”

“I traded you,” she said. “You can have the stuff I left you.”

“You can’t trade clothes if I don’t want yours. Yours won’t fit.
Where are mine?”

“You have to trade,” Marie said. “It’s not your clothes. It’s our
clothes. Mom said...”

I left the kitchen, not willing to hear what she was saying.

“Don’t go through my stuff,” she called after me.

I ran back up the stairs and used the push pin to unlock her door
and enter her bedroom. This was really weird. She snapped at me about my nerdy
clothes all the time. Why the sudden interest in what I was wearing? And the
clothes she was wearing now I didn’t recognize at all. So where did she get
them?

Inside her bedroom, I yanked open the closet door. A collection of
more t-shirts and jeans were hung up. There were small piles on the floor,
underwear, crumpled t-shirts and unwashed jeans. Nothing inside looked like
mine.

Marie marched in behind me. “I said don’t come in here.”

“I thought you said you traded me.” I reached into the closet
floor and pulled one of the t-shirts out. “Where did this come from? And where
are my blouses?”

“I traded them.”

Something in the way she said that struck through me. “Marie, who
did you trade with?”

“Danielle and I went through each other’s closets.”

I felt my jaw drop. “And mine?”

“They’re mine too. We went through and sorted them. She...”

“Has my clothes.” I finished for her, dropping the t-shirt in my
hand to the floor. I pressed my palm to my forehead. “Why would you do that?”

“Just get out,” she said, her mouth twisting into a horrible
frown. “It’s none of your business. Why do you care?”

“You can’t give away things that don’t belong to you. Why would
Danielle want my skirts?” My voice rose. I couldn’t help it. And Nathan’s
shirt! And Luke’s! Where were they? “How did she get into the house?”

“I let her come in,” she said. Her sharp nose crinkled. “You
always wear the same nerdy clothes in the wrong way. Everyone thinks you’re a
dork. Just wear the jeans.”

I pursed my lips. I didn’t have a way to combat her further. I
stalked out of Marie’s room and across the hallway.

Marie knew I couldn’t go to our mother to complain. It would break
the thin veil of a pact we’d managed to forge between us. She could easily tell
our mother I was out with the boys today, or that I had a key to the house, or
a few other things that would get me into trouble. Did she know the boys came
into the house? Is that why she thought it was okay if Danielle showed up? Her
bedroom was right above our parents’ room. How could she get away with Danielle
talking with her? The only way I thought the boys and I got away with it was
because I was on the other side of the house.

There was no one to turn to. Our dad was gone with no way to reach
him on his business trip. I couldn’t tell my mom without starting a fight and
risk getting a strange punishment. With Luke there, he would pull me out and it
would be a complete mess. I was stuck without recourse against this. If I
fought Marie on it, she’d go to our mom and I’d end up in a punishment anyway.

I retreated back to my room, closing the door behind myself and
locking it. I pressed my back to the frame. I swallowed, frustrated and biting
my tongue to restrain words burning behind my lips. Nothing I could say would
help. There was no room for negotiation right now. I didn’t even know Danielle
and she had my clothes. It creeped me out.

I slipped over to the attic, gently knocking at it. Luke emerged,
pushing his blond locks behind his ear. “What happened?”

“Danielle was here,” I said. “Her and Marie ‘traded’ clothes with
me.” I went to my bed to go through the assortment again, hoping the boys’
things were at least there and I missed them the first time through. No luck.
“Danielle took my clothes. Marie has hers and gave me whatever they didn’t want
for themselves I guess.”

Luke frowned, approaching the bed and tracing a finger over a pair
of jeans. “Can’t you get them back?”

“I don’t know how,” I said. “I can’t complain to my mother.” I
picked through the pile, holding up a pair of jeans to my waist. It wasn’t much
use. Each one of them appeared too big for me. The bottom hems pooled around my
feet.

Luke sat on the bed. “You can’t go to school naked,” he said. “We
should get your clothes back. Let’s go to Danielle’s. We’ll confront her.”

“We can’t. We’re supposed to stay out of trouble, remember?”

Luke blew out a puff of air from between his lips. He shifted,
wrapping an arm around my waist and tugging me. I slipped into his lap. He
pressed his cheek to my forehead. “Sang, you can’t let yourself get walked over
like this. They stole your clothes.”

“What choice do I have?” I whispered to him, staring absently at
my knees.

He sighed, brushing his fingertips over the outside of my thigh as
he held me. “I wish I knew. She can’t do this to you. She’s taking advantage of
you.”

“If I went to our mom, she’d get into trouble, too,” I said.

“Would she?” he asked. He drew his head back, gazing down into my
face. “Do you remember the last time your mother even talked to your sister? Or
even asked about her?”

I blinked, unsure. “I don’t know. She does that sometimes.”

“When is the last time you saw your sister on her knees?”

I tried to recall but my mind was hazy. After learning my clothes
were gone and after the crazy day we’d had, it was hard to concentrate. “I
don’t remember.”

“Or maybe it’s been a really long time, long enough for your
memory to fade?” he asked. “Sweetie, you’ve gotten how much done to you in the
few weeks that I’ve known you, and Marie hasn’t once been called out for
anything. You thought you went unnoticed at school before? Your sister is
invisible here.”

Was that true? If it was, how did that happen? How did I not
notice? I thought perhaps maybe it did happen to her and I was gone when it
happened. She never looked surprised when she saw me on my knees or on the
stool or in any of the other punishments over the years. My father was never
there to acknowledge either of us... but then he told me about going on his
business trips, didn’t he? And my mother shouted for me instead of Marie when
she needed something or wanted to check on us. Did they forget about her?

“She might not get the punishments you get,” Luke continued,
smoothing a fingertip over my knee. “But that’s no excuse to take advantage of
her own sister. I want to feel sorry for her, but I can’t right now.”

I made a small noise from my throat, frustrated, confused.
“There’s nothing else to do,” I said. “She got what she wanted, I guess. She
traded Danielle for clothes, and I’ve got the leftovers.” I wanted to stop
talking about problems I couldn’t fix. The overhanging questions about why she
was invisible in the house and why I was sought out for exotic, unusual
punishments wasn’t something I was ready to look at. “I’ll find something I can
work with.”

Luke sighed and let me go. I crawled off of his lap, returning my
attention to the pile on the bed. I found the smallest pair of jeans I could
find, measured out the length. I found a pair of scissors to cut them into
shorts.

I picked out the smallest t-shirt. It looked like a boy’s shirt.
Other jeans and shirts looked like old boy clothes. Something told me some of
these belonged to Derrick.

I thought about washing the clothes I was wearing, but the shorts
were too short for school regulations. The shirt, maybe. What else would I wear
later? I couldn’t go to school wearing the same two pairs of shorts and shirts.

Luke remained quiet on the bed as I fiddled with the clothes. I
discarded items that were too big for me. He folded those pieces carefully and
set them aside. “I could go get your clothes,” he said softly.

I blinked at him, my eyes tracing over the gentle angles of his
face, the way his smooth lips twitched down at the corners. “How?”

His dark eyes met mine. His normal, happy disposition was gone,
replaced by something cold. “I’ll take them back.”

The way he said it made my heart stop. I don’t know how it
occurred to me, but in my mind, I envisioned Luke sneaking into Danielle’s
house and stealing the clothes. He was quiet on his feet, sneaking around my
own house. Did he think he could do it at Danielle’s without anyone noticing?
Was that what he meant?

The clothing I held slipped from my fingers to the floor. I
stumbled toward him, closing the distance between us. I dropped my arms around
his neck and buried my face into his shoulder. He leaned back, as if surprised
at my sudden hug.

I couldn’t stand to see his eyes like that. I couldn’t take it if
he got caught stealing from Danielle’s house. Then he’d really get into trouble.
“Don’t do it,” I begged him. “Please.”

His palm drifted to rest at the small of my back. “I want to. You
can’t wear these to school, Sang.”

I squeezed my arms around his neck. “No,” I whispered. “Don’t.
Please.”