Which is stupid on their part, because this house needs an alarm. As I step into the Montgomery home, I am taken aback. They have an open floor plan, so from their gleaming new kitchen, I can see the huge expanse of space and expensive furniture in the living room. Our house was built over one hundred years ago, and I doubt the interior has changed much since then. We have had the same refrigerator for my entire life, and I feel like it might outlive me and everybody I care about.
I leave my sneakers by the back door because their carpet is super light in color, and I’ve already made a few stains on the kitchen floor with my dirty shoes. I creep across the living room, over to the carpeted stairs. And then I start to climb them.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. It was bad enough that I cheated on an exam for the first time in my life （and got caught）。 And now here I am, only a few hours later, breaking into a house, for God’s sake. But this whole thing is Kenzie’s fault. She didn’t have to tell on me to Mrs. Bennett, and she didn’t have to do any of the things she’s been doing to me all semester. She deserves what’s coming to her.
When I get to the top floor, the first room I encounter is a bathroom. I step inside, admiring the gleaming white fixtures and the multicolored toothbrushes lined up on the sink counter. Oh my God, is that a seat warmer on the toilet? Would it be weird to try it out?
Yes, it probably would.
For a moment, I stare at myself in the vanity mirror of the sink. This is the same mirror Kenzie uses to look at herself every single day. Except when she looks into this mirror, her reflection shows perfect cheekbones, clear blue eyes, and silky blond hair, rather than my own nondescript features, with mud-colored eyes and hair.
I tap open the medicine cabinet with my index finger. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s filled with various skin creams and hair products. There are a couple of orange bottles of pills on the top shelf, and I pick up the first one.
Ondansetron. Take one tablet three times a day as needed for nausea.
Before I have a chance to wonder why Kenzie needs to take a pill for nausea, I turn the bottle and see that the prescription is for her older brother. Of course. Kenzie doesn’t get nauseous. She’s probably never vomited in her whole life.
It doesn’t take me long to find Kenzie’s bedroom. There are several bedrooms upstairs, but one of them is clearly the master bedroom, the other seems to belong to a teenage boy—her brother, presumably—and Kenzie’s is the one with the canopy bed and the large pink jewelry box on the desk. It is for real the nicest kid’s bedroom I’ve ever seen.
I sit down at Kenzie’s white desk, sinking into the leather chair. Kenzie sits in this very seat, and she does her homework, and she probably just takes for granted how lucky she is.
I pull open the top drawer of her desk. There’s a torn piece of notebook paper stuffed inside with a note scribbled on it: I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t wait to see you tonight. Ugh, just what I wanted to find—a love note from Hudson. I still can’t believe he’s dating her.
It was so weird with me and Hudson. When we were younger, I adored him and thought he was cute in a general sort of way with his eager smile and white-blond tousled hair, but I didn’t have a crush on him or anything. We played together the way any two kids would, playing Nintendo or doing homework together. When it was summer, we would toss a ball around in his backyard, walk together to the nearest store to get candy, or wriggle under the fence to get into his neighbor’s yard to use their swimming pool.
But then when we got to high school, Hudson shot up in height so that he was finally taller than me—a lot taller than me—and suddenly, I started thinking about him differently. I started fantasizing what it would be like to kiss him. And I got the feeling he was thinking about me the same way.
Not that it was Kenzie’s fault that my best friend stopped speaking to me. That was all because of what happened with my father and what I made Hudson do. But it doesn’t make it any less painful to see them together.
I look over at a ceramic figure on her desk. It’s a bird, painted light blue and violet. When I pick it up, I can see her initials, KM, etched into the bottom, which means that she made it in ceramics class, even though it looks professional. Kenzie is even amazing at ceramics. On a whim, I hurl the bird to the floor, where it shatters into five pieces.
I thought breaking something in her room might make me feel better, but it doesn’t. At all. And weirdly, I don’t feel as upset about her and Hudson as I used to. I still miss Hudson as a friend, but when I fantasize about a guy who I would like to be with, it isn’t him anymore.