It had been one of those long, bone tiring days where the city felt like a machine chewing me up and spitting me out on the other side. My laptop was still open on the kitchen counter with an unfinished email glowing on the screen, and I stood by the window with my phone pressed to my ear while the skyline of Boston cut jagged shapes into a sky streaked with orange and pink. In the middle of that quiet moment the voice I least wanted to hear broke through the line with sharp satisfaction.
“You’re banned from the family beach house forever.”
The words came from Diana Crawford, my stepmother, and they snapped through the speaker with a kind of delighted cruelty that made my fingers tighten around the phone. I stared at my reflection in the glass, my dark hair twisted into a messy bun and my sweater sliding off one shoulder, while the sound of traffic drifted up from the street far below.
“What?” I asked slowly.
“I’ve changed all the locks,” she continued, savoring every syllable. “Do not even think about trying to get inside. This is what you deserve for ruining your sister’s graduation party.”
I almost laughed at that. “You mean the party I was never invited to?” I asked calmly.