“This is the last time,” I promise. To him. To myself. It’s not about Adriana; it’s about me. I’ll never be a cheater. And taking someone who doesn’t belong to you knowingly—that’s cheating.

He tears his lips away from mine and grins. “You really thought me going down on you is you winning?” he mocks, dragging his palm across his chin and sucking the rest of my juices from his finger.

I stare at him, stunned. What the hell happened to the fourteen-year-old kid who gave me a precious sea glass, the equivalent of a rare diamond?

“Oh, sweetheart, we’ll be over when I say we’re over.”

She’s a work of art

And as such

There’s nothing more devastating

Than watching her break

“We can grab Starbucks on the way back home.”

That’s his peace offering after eating me out against a filthy auto-shop sign with his girlfriend not even one hundred feet away.

Penn offers the olive branch in his taciturn tone the morning after Lenny’s while I’m sitting at the kitchen island with my family, sipping coffee and messing on my phone. Since I haven’t slept a wink, analyzing the entire timeline of our relationship, I decide to play along. This is what I’ve come up with so far:

Him having a girlfriend was speculation until yesterday, not a fact. When I asked, he dodged, and I never asked again. While it is true that my research should have been more thorough, he went home with Blythe so openly, I didn’t think about it too much.

Yesterday, I was disoriented and shocked, which is why I let what happened, happen. But it won’t happen anymore. I can’t have an affair with the guy who lives under my roof and hates me for screwing up his possibly dead sister’s life.

He may have taken all my important firsts so far, but he is not going to take the big V-card.

Penn grabs his varsity jacket and motions for Bailey to move it. They’re going to the library together. They’ve been spending a lot of time together. I’m jealous of Bails. I’m jealous of Penn. But most of all, I’m jealous of the fact they are capable of forming a real relationship.

All eyes dart from newspapers and iPads and shiny chrome magazines to us.

“No thanks, I’m going to Blythe’s.”

Her name makes both of us pause. Penn nods curtly, clearing his throat. Dad is looking back and forth between us, reading between the lines.

“Penn, don’t pork Daria’s friends,” he drawls.

Melody gasps. “Jaime!”

“What? I’m not the one doing it!”

“Yes, sir.” Penn plucks a donut from the open white box in the center of the table and takes a bite. “Happy not to touch anyone Daria is affiliated with. Her personality might be contagious.”

I roll my eyes, knowing I am being watched, and that Dad—the only person on my team in this house—will flip his shit if he finds out Penn touched me.

“Hate you, bro.” I smile sweetly.

“Indifferent to you, sis,” Penn says midbite, ruffling my hair as he ambles out the door with Bails. It makes my heart flutter in my chest like a butterfly, but at the same time, I’m also sick to my stomach. Penn really is like a brother to Bailey.

A brother who also had his fingers and tongue in her older sister’s privates.

I spend the day stalking Adriana on social media. She is gorgeous, and her baby daughter, Harper, is adorable. Harper is fair-skinned with green eyes, just like Penn. There are a ton of pictures of Addy and Harper together, and two of them with Penn. He always looks at them like they’re the apple of his eye.

Apples. He hasn’t given me apples in a while. Does that mean he thinks he’s already conquered me?

At night, another crisis ensues. Mel doesn’t come to check on me for the first time since I was born. She doesn’t tuck me in bed, kiss my forehead, and tell me she loves me. Probably because she doesn’t.

Maybe she’s given up on me after the ice-cream parlor stunt. Perhaps, she wants me to pack my stuff and move to college. I’m her glowing, shiny failure. Blackhearted and empty.

I tell myself that I don’t care, but inside, my guts rip to shreds and bleed all over my stomach.

I take my little black book to my mother’s in-house ballet studio. She turned a part of our basement into a well-lit workroom when we first moved here, and since then, she’s spent a considerable amount of time here, mostly with Bailey. I can still hear the echo of their laughter crawling up the basement stairs every summer evening while I was holed up in my room, climbing the walls.

Mel never invited me here, so now I come here on my own, inviting myself.

The night I found out Via ran away, I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the studio wearing full ballet gear. I ran my gaze along my leotard-clad body, knowing I was too clumsy, too curvy, too Daria to be a ballerina. Melody found her joy in other girls. Girls more athletic, and disciplined, and regal. Girls like Via. I got jealous, and I started acting up. Instead of pulling me in and telling me that I was irreplaceable, Mel let me go.