it was time for another family celebration.
“Happy birthday to you!” Rachel sang, holding out a homemade chocolate cupcake with a single pink candle stuck in the center. “Happy birthday, dear Olivia, happy birthday to youuuuuu!”
“Thanks, sis,” Olivia said, squeezing Rachel into a sideways hug.
“Mrs. Lehman let me use the oven in the cafeteria,” Rachel told her. “Make a wish!”
Olivia didn’t really have a wish, other than a generalized desire to make sure that Rachel would always be taken care of, no matter what. But she blew the candle out anyway.
“Do you feel sixteen?” Rachel asked, setting the cupcake on Olivia’s desk.
Olivia shook her head, and smiled.
“Feels the same, I guess,” she said.
She didn’t tell Rachel that she had felt thirty since she was thirteen. That she didn’t even know what being a teenager was supposed to be like. She also didn’t tell Rachel that she hated her birthday. That she dreaded it every year. While everyone else was celebrating New Year’s Eve, making resolutions and toasting to the future, Olivia was haunted by the past.
Randall.
She hadn’t opened his annual birthday card yet, because she didn’t have the stomach. How had that bastard managed to find her at Deerborn? Would she never be rid of him? She kept telling herself that she should just throw the envelope away unopened, but somehow she never did. Every year she opened that card, and just the sight of his childish, semi-literate handwriting made her physically sick.
He never wrote anything negative or overtly hostile inside those sappy, generic cards, just the phrase “Thinking of you.” But the unwritten message was loud and clear.
I’m still here.
Just a few inches to the left, and that second bullet would have hit his femoral artery, causing him to bleed out before the ambulance arrived. In the years since that terrible night, Olivia had become a champion skeet and trap shooter, and was the current co-captain of the Deerborn Academy Rifle Team. She was driven to excel at the sport—so much so that Coach Lowenbruck had recently started pushing her to try out for the Olympics.
But for Olivia it was too little, too late. Because she’d been so scared that night, so overwhelmed with emotion—and when it really mattered, she’d failed.
It was a failure Randall would never let her forget.
His yearly reminder sat on Olivia’s desk beside Rachel’s charmingly lopsided cupcake. She reached for the pastry and casually slid the envelope under her history textbook, so her little sister wouldn’t see it and get upset. Rachel was sensitive and deeply superstitious. A girl who loved birthdays and cupcakes and presents. Olivia didn’t want to ruin that for her, so she never told Rachel about the cards.
Olivia made herself smile and took a bite of the cupcake, leaving chocolate and sprinkles smeared across her lips.
“Delicious,” she said. “Thanks, Rach.”
There was a tentative knock on the half-open door, and she jumped involuntarily. Then Kieran McKie stuck his shaggy head into the room.
Kieran was a tall, lanky senior who looked kind of like what you’d get if a teenage mad scientist had joined a grunge band. His unruly brown hair was at that awkward, still-growing-out shoulder length, and his bony wrists always stuck way out of his too-short sleeves. He wore heavy, vintage horn-rimmed glasses and the eyes behind them were the exact same shade of green as Olivia’s.
He wasn’t an orphan, but he may as well have been. His single mother was Kristie McKie, the celebrity fitness trainer. She was always busy jet-setting all over the world, shooting her bestselling workout videos and whipping her famous clients into shape. Holidays were her busiest time, since everyone was being tempted by all that wicked holiday food, and needed to work it off.
As a result Kieran was stuck there at Deerborn with the rest of the holiday orphans. Olivia met him during the Thanksgiving break, and
“Happy birthday to you!” Rachel sang, holding out a homemade chocolate cupcake with a single pink candle stuck in the center. “Happy birthday, dear Olivia, happy birthday to youuuuuu!”
“Thanks, sis,” Olivia said, squeezing Rachel into a sideways hug.
“Mrs. Lehman let me use the oven in the cafeteria,” Rachel told her. “Make a wish!”
Olivia didn’t really have a wish, other than a generalized desire to make sure that Rachel would always be taken care of, no matter what. But she blew the candle out anyway.
“Do you feel sixteen?” Rachel asked, setting the cupcake on Olivia’s desk.
Olivia shook her head, and smiled.
“Feels the same, I guess,” she said.
She didn’t tell Rachel that she had felt thirty since she was thirteen. That she didn’t even know what being a teenager was supposed to be like. She also didn’t tell Rachel that she hated her birthday. That she dreaded it every year. While everyone else was celebrating New Year’s Eve, making resolutions and toasting to the future, Olivia was haunted by the past.
Randall.
She hadn’t opened his annual birthday card yet, because she didn’t have the stomach. How had that bastard managed to find her at Deerborn? Would she never be rid of him? She kept telling herself that she should just throw the envelope away unopened, but somehow she never did. Every year she opened that card, and just the sight of his childish, semi-literate handwriting made her physically sick.
He never wrote anything negative or overtly hostile inside those sappy, generic cards, just the phrase “Thinking of you.” But the unwritten message was loud and clear.
I’m still here.
Just a few inches to the left, and that second bullet would have hit his femoral artery, causing him to bleed out before the ambulance arrived. In the years since that terrible night, Olivia had become a champion skeet and trap shooter, and was the current co-captain of the Deerborn Academy Rifle Team. She was driven to excel at the sport—so much so that Coach Lowenbruck had recently started pushing her to try out for the Olympics.
But for Olivia it was too little, too late. Because she’d been so scared that night, so overwhelmed with emotion—and when it really mattered, she’d failed.
It was a failure Randall would never let her forget.
His yearly reminder sat on Olivia’s desk beside Rachel’s charmingly lopsided cupcake. She reached for the pastry and casually slid the envelope under her history textbook, so her little sister wouldn’t see it and get upset. Rachel was sensitive and deeply superstitious. A girl who loved birthdays and cupcakes and presents. Olivia didn’t want to ruin that for her, so she never told Rachel about the cards.
Olivia made herself smile and took a bite of the cupcake, leaving chocolate and sprinkles smeared across her lips.
“Delicious,” she said. “Thanks, Rach.”
There was a tentative knock on the half-open door, and she jumped involuntarily. Then Kieran McKie stuck his shaggy head into the room.
Kieran was a tall, lanky senior who looked kind of like what you’d get if a teenage mad scientist had joined a grunge band. His unruly brown hair was at that awkward, still-growing-out shoulder length, and his bony wrists always stuck way out of his too-short sleeves. He wore heavy, vintage horn-rimmed glasses and the eyes behind them were the exact same shade of green as Olivia’s.
He wasn’t an orphan, but he may as well have been. His single mother was Kristie McKie, the celebrity fitness trainer. She was always busy jet-setting all over the world, shooting her bestselling workout videos and whipping her famous clients into shape. Holidays were her busiest time, since everyone was being tempted by all that wicked holiday food, and needed to work it off.
As a result Kieran was stuck there at Deerborn with the rest of the holiday orphans. Olivia met him during the Thanksgiving break, and
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