MADE

Lake House

"You can't be serious," Rayne drawled leaning her head back against the headrest and rolling her muted blue eyes at me. Her chocolate hair was stuck to the side of her face like it usually was after a shower, making her pale skin look shiny with the sunlight coming in through the windshield.

Rayne and I had the same nose and the same big mouth, but other than that we looked nothing alike. Sure, we were both somewhat tall, but that's all the genetics our parents had given us the same. Not that we knew precisely which parent they would have come from.

We knew of our adopted status, but just as Miranda and John had adopted us, we had adopted them right back. Miranda was kind and proper and everything you could want in a mother. John, on the other hand, had left us a while ago now. We never really knew why and I never cared enough to ask.

I pulled my eyes from the road for a split second to glare at her. "I'm not going," I snapped, my knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. "It's pointless and stupid, and if you tell mom, you can ride the bus next year."

Her mouth fell open wide enough that she could have caught the bugs on the windshield had it not been there to stop them. "You wouldn't," she stated as her eyes narrowed into slits.

"Oh, I would," I quipped. "I'll drive the nice warm car to school, and you can sit on the freezing bus for twice as long."

Her gaze turned to look out the window. "Fine."

I almost smiled.

"Don't be pissy with me. You know how hard it is."

She looked at me, familiar pity written clear as day on her face. I hated that look, but it was the only inclination I had that she understood. I couldn't write that exam today.

I would have to sit next to him and feel him looking at me and everyone else looking at my face, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I would pass with or without writing it anyway, and this way he didn't get the satisfaction of saying goodbye for the summer.

Most of the other kids could still see the bruise of my broken nose finally healing, and the yellow tinge around the once-fractured eye socket. They liked to stare, gawk at me like I was a really strange exhibit at a museum. I reminded them that the story wasn't a tall tale.

Or at least that's what I hoped. Many didn't honestly believe it was one of our classmates that had given me the shiner and broken pieces but that was their problem. Not mine. But I️ didn't blame them. With how convincing his alibi was, some days I️ even believed him.

When I️ tried to press charges, everything kind of fell out from under me. They had no video surveillance for that night, the accused had convincing evidence to prove he was in the States visiting family, including boarding passes, photo evidence and a island full of whiteness, and the feeling of sitting in a court room staring at his face while everyone else looked on made my heart race so fast I️ thought it might explode. No one, not even the doctors or the police department believed it was the communities golden boy. And neither did a soul in that court room.

In the end I️ pulled out, dropped the charges. Everyone thought that the sketchy part of town that I️ worked in had just taken another victim. Some bum, a noname and no way to prove or track down. Technically the investigation was still ongoing. They wouldn't find anything. I️ was gone for the summer now anyways and maybe I️ wouldn't even return in the fall.

Just the crazy girl who was frantic that her boyfriend broke up with her.

We turned off the highway and into the school parking lot just as buses were beginning to unload with younger students. I pulled up to the doors and Rayne slipped out. She looked at me once, a sad smile on her pretty face and began to close the door.