The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

worked for me time and time again and I’d vowed it would work this time with Guy and Gord. I needed it to work. The stakes were too high and I couldn’t jeopardize everything I’d planned just for a job at a lousy school. This was what I’d wanted. Surely it wasn’t too late to get things back on track.

But the first thing I had to do was apologize to Guy. Make it right.

I gulped down three cups of coffee then tried his phone but he wasn’t answering. I figured maybe he needed time to cool off. I’d touched a nerve with my comment and now he wanted to make me pay for it. He was just like all the rest of the people in my life – vengeful, vindictive. Not happy unless they could get back at you in some mean, spiteful way.

Like Birdie.

After she started hanging out with Loni, she did a total one-eighty. The little girl who’d clung to me and made all the hurt go away, suddenly took pleasure in making me suffer. And each time the pain was worse.

But I couldn’t think about that. My head was in turmoil. One minute I was agonizing about how Birdie and I had drifted apart and the next, I was longing to make things right with Guy.

I picked up my keys. A drive would clear my head. Help me think.

I drove towards the Stone Arch Bridge again, parked the car and sat watching the falls. The scrappy spring breeze gusted in through the window, bringing with it the faint sulfurous stink of the river. I closed my eyes and tried to think. Back to Birdie and what eventually happened at the end of the Donna placement.

Birdie and I started going to the mall by ourselves. Sometimes at night. Donna was in such a dark phase she’d forgotten we lived there. As long as her girls were locked in their bedroom, she didn’t worry about us.

At first, I was glad Birdie asked me along with her until I spied Loni and Duane slouched against the wall by the Lego store. I grabbed Birdie’s sleeve.

“I don’t wanna go with them.”

She rolled her eyes. “Piss on Donna and her loser friends. I’m starving. You want a burger, fries and onion rings? So tag along and learn. I’m sick of begging.”

Loni looked different. Nice hairstyle, silver earrings and wearing a white quilted jacket with gray fur trim. Her eyes lit up when she saw Birdie.

“If it ain’t my little sister, Birdie. Babe, you gone skinny like a weasel,” she squealed, hi-fiving Birdie. A massive grin cracked my sister’s face. The first genuine one I’d seen in months. I felt a stab of jealousy. I wanted to punch Loni in her big, wide face. And she could see right through me because when her heavily lined eyes rested on mine, her mouth drooped. “Pick up your face, bitch, or Duane and me’ll give you a whooping.”

Birdie whispered something in her ear and Loni glanced back at me. “Okay, she can come, long as she stays back and don’t cause no trouble.”

I trotted behind them, salivating at the thought of a juicy burger and hot, salty fries. And when Loni, Duane and then Birdie took turns stealing clothes and makeup from the stores, I pretended to be looking through the racks. They’d go into changing rooms, rip off the tags and then saunter out with T-shirts, underwear, pants and sweaters hidden underneath their coats. I always made sure to leave the store before them. I wanted the burger so bad, but no way would I let myself get caught jacking stuff. Loni and Duane might think I was a just a stupid, dumb loser, but unlike Birdie who was a grab it while you can girl, I had a clear view of the way the world works and the future I wanted, and it didn’t include getting a criminal record. Even at thirteen, I knew you could kiss the soap opera fantasy life goodbye if you tarnished your name in your teens.

A tap on my window brought me back to the present. A parking guy was motioning me to move along. The sun had retreated behind gray clouds and a fine drizzle misted the windshield, blurring the lines of the downtown skyline. I checked my watch and realized I’d been parked there for at least an hour and Guy still hadn’t called or texted. I needed to keep moving – go somewhere or else I’d drive myself crazy, so I started driving. I passed by the apartment with the orange flowered wallpaper and pulled up outside the building. The harsh spring sunlight bleached the graffiti scrawled across the brick frontage. A couple of ragged looking junkies sat on the front steps fighting over a bottle. And the windows were so grimy I couldn’t see that wallpaper.

How had we ended up there? Was it after Donna’s or was there some other place in between? I kept thinking of those words I’d said to Guy. Curb your wicked tongue. I knew they were associated with this place but I couldn’t remember who had said them and why. I stared so hard the junkies got up and wandered towards me, so I drove away leaving them waving their arms in the air. Then it came to me. A vivid memory of a strip of cheap hotels just blocks away.

The Sunday traffic was light. I drove almost on autopilot, wondering if I should call Guy, but I had no idea what to say. No relationship in my dating history had ever lasted longer than a week, so I had no words for making up with someone. I’d never done it in my life.

Except with Birdie. I’d begged her like a dog to let me back. And it didn’t work.

I drove up and down the strip of cheap motels, trying to find the place Birdie and I had lived. A long row of crumbling brick and concrete cubes built