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I couldn’t deny Saint View wasn’t exactly glamorous. My father had lived there for years, and nothing had changed in the time he’d been away. But his viewpoint wasn’t the whole story either.
“It’s true,” I admitted to my sister. “But there’s also some great things about it. My job. My friends are all there. They’re good people. The best people, actually. I just recently moved one town over, into a nicer house, but Saint View will always be my home.”
Torrence asked Kian to help him with an oversized bag of feed that needed to be spread out among the horses, and Kian quickly rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
Vaughn stuck close to me though, taking the whole “not getting separated” thing extra seriously.
“I’d like to meet your friends one day.” Alice tugged me toward a large black horse, its head hanging over a stall to stare at us curiously. “I don’t have many here on the commune. Only Samantha really. None of the other girls are my age.”
Vaughn shot a look at me.
Commune, he mouthed.
I’d heard it too.
Alice caught us and laughed. “You think we’re weird hippies now or something, right? It’s not like that. Ridgemont is just a community of people who like to be as self-sufficient as possible.”
I patted the horse’s silky nose. “That doesn’t sound so bad, I guess. Growing your own food. Not paying a fortune in taxes to the city.”
She nodded. “We used to have TV but not anymore. Not since Uncle Josiah deemed it ruined our brains. I missed it at first, but not so much anymore. Come on, I’ll show you the chickens.”
I went to follow her, interested in seeing anything she wanted to show me.
Vaughn pulled me back. “No TV? What’s the bet there’s no smartphones allowed either? This is weird, Roach. I’ve got bad vibes.”
I pulled my arm away, laughing him off. “Not everyone has to be a slave to technology. I think it’s kind of nice. Do you have any idea of the trouble I was getting myself into at her age? It would have been a lot less if I were out here with no phone or TV.”
He scoffed. “You can’t seriously be telling me you’d rather have grown up out here, completely sheltered and oblivious to the real world?”
His accusations cut. I didn’t like that he was calling my sister sheltered. She was just a kid. Not even old enough to vote, probably. She didn’t need to be worldly at that age. I’d learned young the world was cold and hard and would chew you up and spit you out. I’d got tough because of it. Alice was still sweet and kind. She reminded me of Bliss.
The world needed more people like them.
Vaughn was just being an ass because that was his usual state of being.
Alice waved me over to the chicken coop. “Rebel! Come on!”
Just beyond it sat an array of raised garden beds. A man straightened at Alice’s shout and put a hand to his eyes to shield them from the slowly sinking sun. “What do you have here, Alice?”
She dragged me over to the man. “Uncle Josiah, this is my big sister, Rebel.”
The man did a double take. “Big sister…wow. I had no idea you had another sister.” He held a hand out to me. “Rebel, was it? Nice to meet you.”
I shook the man’s hand. He was maybe the same age as my dad. Somewhere in his mid-forties. “This is Vaughn.”
Josiah offered Vaughn his hand, but Vaughn was very slow to take it.
He eyed the man warily. “Uncle, huh? So are you Torrence or Sally-Ann’s sibling? Or married in?”
He gave a small shake of his head. “Neither, actually. But all the kids in the commune call the adults aunt or uncle as a sign of respect.”
Vaughn nodded. “I see.”
I nudged him with my elbow. The words he’d said were fine, it was more the way he’d said them. Like he was completely suspicious of the entire thing. He was being rude and judgmental and he knew it.
“Are there many other families here?” I asked. “I didn’t see any other houses on the way in.”
Josiah nodded. “We have a lot of land here. There are more houses over that ridge. Some others beyond that stretch of trees. There are a few different entrances too. My place has a driveway onto the street back there, instead of the one you would have come in to get to Alice’s place.”