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The summer kids have never been overly cruel or bullying to me, but I know I somehow don’t make the cut to be in the inner circle. That never bothered me. I’m sort of my own circle. I still have conversations with Theo, my first teddy bear, and a backup crew of couture-dressed Barbies.

But maybe,maybe, this time I can play it cool enough and brave enough to ask if I can hitch a ride to the Big Apple and secretly make my dream of being a fashion designer come true.

“Party at Mina’s,” Cindy repeats with that lip biting thing again which makes me uneasy. But this is new territory for me so knowing what the secret cool-girl-code is for ‘lip biting’ isn’t expected. “Let’s say, 10 o’clock? You aren’t in bed by then are you?”

Snorts and low chuckles filter from the group as I stiffen andDutton takes a few steps my way as if to say,‘You okay?’.I wave him off, then grit my teeth and light this candle. I’m eighteen now. An adult. Time to take the reins of my life.

“I’ll be there.” I re-mark with an attempt at the lip-biting, stepping backward and into a little kid with pink ice cream dripping down his face as his mother shoots me a dirty look. “Sorry.” I mutter, then end on a stumble toward Dutton with my stomach feeling as though it’s full of rocks.

Two

Mina

This was the worst idea of the worst ideas I’ve ever had.

Liquor bottles and little open packages of gummy whatevers that arenotfor children are strewn across the kitchen counter. The scent of pot drifts in from the front porch where some of the partygoers I don’t know are smoking after I found the courage to tell them there was no smoking inside.

They looked at me like I was speaking Latin, but I felt Jackson with me somehow and stood my ground. I have no emotional attachment to this house, but I do care that my mom and Allen would have a gigantic-chunky-fat-fit if anyone smoked inside.

I would be having a heart attack right now if marijuana wasn’t legal in Michigan, but alcohol isnotlegal until you’re twenty-one so therearelaws being broken here and my head is pounding and I’m pretty sure I’m close to Afib.

Things were okay when Cindy and the others summer crowd showed up at first. But, twenty minutes later, three other cars pulled up and now the house is filled with a throng of strangers. My panic is at DEFCON five and I’m struggling to breathe as I chastise myself for thinking I could handle this.

“Tequila?” A random blonde in a bandeau-strap Michel Kors last season micro-mini dress shoves a bottle toward my face. “You look like you need a drink.”

“I’m good.” I wave her off pinching the bridge of my nose as a roar of laughter echoes from down the hall and I re-consider the blonde’s offer. I need some sort of courage to ask Cindy for that ride to New York and I can’t seem to muster it on my own.

I cover my nose and mouth with my hands on an inhale, the scent of the cherry-blossom hand lotion Jackson buys for me every year for my birthday, from some boutique in Paris. It calms me and I love it. It reminds me of him, and right now I need to be reminded of him. His strength, the way he believes in me, the way he encourages me no matter what.

“Fashionshow!” Jeremy, one of the group from town earlier comes high-stepping into the kitchen with a bottle of some fancy scotch in his hand.

My stomach drops as what’s following him steals the breath from my lungs.

“N—no.” I stutter, slapping my hands over my eyes as they start to burn but then peak through my fingers.

NO, no, no, no…

First, it’s Reagan wearing the blue ruched satin evening gown that took me over twenty hours to hand stitch. I mean, satin is a nightmare on its own, but ruching it and stitching it all by hand? It’s next level stuff and I had itperfect.

Not only that. She’s carrying theBarbiewith the exact matching outfit.

“Mina, you still playing with dolls?” she hisses, holding the Barbie next to her chest. “Look, we’re twins!”

Next, a stumbling girl I don’t recognize is wearing the skirt and vest separates from the collection, the hand stitching on the front seam pulling over her enormous boobs, and of course carrying the matching Barbie.

Watching is worse than getting a cavity drilled without Novocain, but I’m frozen as the final six looks from my collection are paraded through the living room in various states of destruction.

I pinch my lips together as someone turns up the music until it shakes the floor and the group dances and prances around wearing the most important work of my life while shooting videos and darn near knocking themselvesoutwith how hilarious they think they are.

I can’t watch and I can’t seem to find the courage to stop it, so I do what I usually do. Retreat.

The blonde shoots me a somewhat sympathetic look. “Hey, you okay? You look—”

I grab the bottle of tequila from her hand and head outside, slumping down into a cushioned patio chair by the glimmering swimming pool, with a view across the lawn right down to the lake.

So. Much. Water.

And not just water. The worst kind of water.