I adjust my goggles and breathe in the cool mountain air. Snow clings to the spruces towering above, which border the edge of this run, preventing less-experienced skiers from tumbling down the side of the mountain. My grip tightens on my poles and I push off from where I was resting. Pierre, the exquisite French boy I met on the chairlift, smiles at me, and together we swoosh, swoosh, swoosh down the slope.

I’m not a flashy skier—I prefer to always be in control and have worked for years to perfect my form—but it still takes work to make it look effortless. My leg muscles flex as my skis glide inches apart, and I toss another smile to Pierre.

We round a bend and my breath catches. Lake St. Moritz stretches out before us, its clear blue water reflecting the clouds in the sky. Even after a dozen runs, this view never gets old.

Pierre slows next to me. “It is pretty, yes?”

I nod. “Yes.” A lump forms in my throat. I never want to go home. Everything about this moment is so wonderful and—

Pierre slaps his pole against mine, making a loud clanging noise.

“What are you doing?”

“Brianna.” His sexy French accent slips away and he sounds angry. He hits my pole again and the sound echoes off the trees.

I reach for his hand, panic fluttering in my chest. “Stop. You’re ruining the moment.”

“Miss Vines!” His voice comes out a growl and I jump. Then my eyes open and the Swiss mountains fade away, replaced by a cold cement room flanked with metal benches on three sides. Floor to ceiling metal bars make up the fourth wall, and that’s where a very irritated-looking guard is glaring at me.

I scramble to my feet.

“Your father is here.”

I sink back onto the bench. Facing Dad requires strategy, a plan, and the only thought looping through my head is how stupid I am.

The guard shakes his head. “Nope.”

Cold from the bench seeps through my jeans. Another hour in this filthy cell is better than having to face my father and the horrible things he’s going to say. All of which I deserve.

“He posted your bail. Time to go.”

My legs shake as I stand, and he opens the door with a clang. I always thought they added that sound to movies for effect, but it made that horrible noise when they put me in here two hours ago. Right after they took my glamour shot—I refuse to call it a mug shot—and my fingerprints. Which wasn’t too long after a cop unceremoniously shoved me into the back of a police car a block from the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder, after that screechy storeowner caught me with a handful of necklaces and a few other things that may have bypassed the cash register and found their way into my purse.

My heart gallops as the guard leads me down a dingy green hall, through a locked door, and into the main room where I first came in. I’m the queen of entrances, but it takes every ounce of strength to keep my face composed and conceal the tremor running through me. Dad pushes away from the far wall when he sees me, and my breath stops. I take a step back, bumping into the guard.

Frank Vines isn’t a large man, but his presence commands respect. From his power suit to his two-hundred dollar haircut to his piercing blue eyes that are currently pinning me to this spot, he is not a man to be trifled with.

Edge Rule #1: When balancing on the edge of right and wrong, know which way you want to fall.

“Good luck,” the guard murmurs, then walks away.

Normally I’d already have an excuse prepared, but this is beyond normal. With Frank Vines you only get one chance for vindication, and since I’ve yet to come up with the perfect explanation, silence is best.

I force my feet to carry me forward. Just get it over with. He can’t say anything I haven’t already thought. That I’m ungrateful, spoiled, a disappointment.

His glare hardens as I approach and a cold sweat breaks out over my skin. His cologne hits me first, and for a second I’m five years old, sitting on his lap eating breakfast while he reads the morning paper, but the moment is gone and he takes a step toward me.

His voice is low, carefully trained to not be overheard. “I will never do this again.”

My head bobbles. “Yes, sir.”

He gives me one more heart-stopping glare before stalking out of the Boulder Police Station with me on his heels. His sleek Mercedes is parked in the lot and he doesn’t wait for me to climb in. The engine is already running by the time I fasten my seatbelt.

“Dad, I’m sorry.” My voice comes out whiny—something not tolerated in the Vines household—and I cringe. Apologizing again would only make this worse, but the words dance on my tongue.

His head shakes from side to side, but his eyes stay on the road.

My pocket burns where the necklace was. I don’t know why I took it. Or why I’ve been taking things. It’s not like we don’t have the money to buy anything I want, and I don’t even wear what I’ve stolen. But the adrenaline that rushes through me when my fingers wrap around whatever shiny thing catches my eye outweighs the consequences of getting caught, and it always ends up tucked in my pocket. At first the jewelry sat in a pile on my dresser, reminding me of my poor judgment, but as the pile grew, I pushed it into the top drawer. Today’s haul was just another conquest after another miserable day.

Dad still doesn’t say anything as we turn into our neighborhood. At one point he mumbles “tonight of all nights,” but when I steal a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, his jaw is clenched and his lips are firmly shut.

We glide past mega-mansions still tastefully decked out for Halloween—pumpkins, corn stalks, and ridiculous scarecrows in worn flannel shirts—and he pulls through the gate that’s always open and up the long drive. Lights blaze from the downstairs windows but our porch is pumpkin-free. Mom hasn’t done much in the way of decorating since the flowers last summer, and those lie withered in window boxes and the pots that line the sidewalk.

Dad walks ahead of me, and the car locks as soon as I close the door, telling me he’s watching from inside. My feet refuse to move. Dad is the tyrant of the family, but Mom’s no pushover and she’s going to lose her shit over this. My only chance to get through this in one piece is to hold my head high, like they’ve taught me. Convince them that this is beneath me and won’t happen again.

I step into the foyer, expecting an ambush, but they aren’t there. I shut the heavy door and the sound of the metal lock catching throws me back into the jail cell. Panic grips me and my breaths come faster. How could I be so stupid?

My shoes click on the tiled floor, echoing through the oddly silent house. I’m tempted to race up the stairs and hide in my room for the next year, but Mom’s voice calls out, stopping me.

“Brianna, come to the den.”

Not the living room or family room, the den. Our house is amazing and I brag about it to anyone who will listen, but sometimes it feels like we rotate which room we sit in just to say we use all the rooms. I pause in the open doorway. Bookcases line three walls and overstuffed leather chairs form a seating area in the center of the room. They’re sitting across from each other, waiting for me.

Mom smooths a piece of her shoulder-length blond hair and crosses her legs. She’s still in a suit, and based on the lack of drink in front of either of them, she hasn’t been home long. “What—” her voice is clipped, “—were you thinking?”

I sink into the leather chair facing the door. They’re like two well-coordinated hunters circling their prey before the attack. Seeing the exit makes me feel a little less trapped, even though escape is futile. The leather begs me to curl up and let it end quickly, but I sit straight with my hands folded in my lap. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I take a deep breath. “What do you want me to say?”

She narrows her gaze at me. Between the two of them, it’s no wonder I mastered that look by junior high. “I’d like to know why our daughter, who has been provided everything she has ever asked for and more,” she points a manicured finger at me, “found it necessary to steal cheap trinkets from a store—”

“Just one,” I whisper, and immediately regret it. Arguing semantics never goes well, plus it’s not even close to true. One peek in my top drawer and they’ll realize the jewelry today is just the tip of the cheap trinket iceberg. I glance at Dad, expecting a lecture on talking back, but I don’t think he’s breathed since I sat down. I get that he’s upset, but he’s a businessman to his core and never lets anger control his emotions.

Something more must be going on.

But Mom’s not finished. “Tomorrow you will go back to that store and apologize to the owner. Tell her you didn’t realize you had the necklace.”

I squirm beneath her glare but force my chin up.

“What?” she asks.

“It’s just that…” It feels like I’m ten yards down a black diamond when I meant to take the blue square. It’s too late to turn around and it’s only going to get worse, but I’ve already committed so I’m going down with my head held high. “I already offered her money to ignore it.” And it was a lot more than just a necklace.

“Then offer her more.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think that’ll work with her. She’s more of a hard-ass than the others—” The look on her face stops me. Cursing isn’t permitted in the Vines household, at least not by me, but that wasn’t my biggest mistake.

“What. Others?” Her words are crisp and staccato, like she’s giving a lesson in enunciation.

My head drops.

“Brianna, answer your mother.”

I can’t look up. It’s one thing to lie to myself—to insist I can stop whenever I want and that I’m not hurting anyone—but admitting it to my parents is like letting out every awful secret I’ve buried deep inside.

Mom’s voice is almost a whisper, but it drips with venom. She leans toward me and I fight the urge to burrow into the chair. “How many times have you done this?”

Stolen or been caught? Let’s go with option two. “Only a couple times.”

“Two,” Dad says. “So one other time.”

“Two other times,” I say.

“In addition to the Calliope notebook last spring,” he says.

I’d almost forgotten about that.

A red flush creeps up his neck until the tips of his ears burn bright. The same thing happens to me when I’m mad and for the millionth time I curse whoever’s in charge of picking which genes children get from their parents. Mom’s face only gets red when she’s been in the sun too long.

“I can’t look at you any longer,” he says.

I start to stand, but wait for Mom’s nod. Dad may be the tyrant, but walking away from Miranda Vines before she’s said her piece can be equally destructive.

“We’ll finish this later,” she says. “Consider yourself grounded for the foreseeable future.”

I hurry away before they change their minds. My social life is already over so the only punishment they have left is taking away my physical things. Please not my 4Runner. Or my skis. The season’s just starting and I live for skiing, to be outside, gliding over the mountain with the sky stretching overhead.

The only saving grace from this punishment is they don’t know that grounding me won’t make a difference because I no longer have any friends.

 

*****

 

I turn the page of my history book but it may as well be filled with Egyptian hieroglyphics for as much as I’m understanding. There isn’t a test tomorrow—thank goodness—but that won’t stop Crusty Ray from calling on people to see if they’ve done the reading. I flip back to the previous page and don’t remember any of it. This is pointless. I give it a nudge across the white duvet and it slides over the edge of the bed and lands on the floor with a satisfying thud.

My fingers itch to text someone, but there’s no one left. Kenzie made sure of that. Mike might reply, but she’s somehow found a backbone lately and I’m not in the mood for attitude. At the beginning of the school year, half the student body would’ve been thrilled to hear from me, but after losing Homecoming Queen, it’s like my world crumbled around me.

I roll onto my back, and my Ethics book stabs my side. It’s ironic that I’m doing well in that class. Miss Simpson will have a field day when she finds out what I did.

What I’ve been doing.

How could I be so stupid? Of all the things I’ve taken, I’d never be caught dead wearing those gaudy pieces of gold-plated junk. I mean, hearts dangling from a cheap chain? Right. The leather and bronze bracelets from last month are at least trendy. I don’t know if I’m more embarrassed at being caught, or that I was caught with that particular necklace.

Necklaces. Plural.

And bracelets.

I yank the book out from beneath me and open it to the assigned chapter, but the words swim.

I was in jail.

Jail.

And I was arrested. Like really arrested. Not some stupid rent-a-cop thing where they put you in an office until your parents come get you. My skin crawls imagining the other people who’ve been in that cell and a shiver of disgust rushes through me, but as horrific as it was in there, this feeling of self-loathing is new. I changed clothes when I came upstairs, but I still feel dirty all over. And I don’t know how to make that go away.

I toss the book on the floor—there’s something about that thud that makes me feel a tiny bit better—and pad across the thick carpet to the bathroom that’s attached to my room. Once the water’s as hot as I can stand it, I step into the shower and wait for the shame to wash away, but it never does.

I’m drying off when shouts carry from downstairs. They’ve been fighting a lot lately—which I keep telling myself is better than the usual silence because at least they’re talking to each other—but this time is different because it’s about me. At school I show no fear. If someone even breathes the wrong way in my direction I tear them down with a withering glare, but at home I try my best to keep them from noticing me.

I crack the door to listen while I get dressed, but can only pick out the words like “family” and “bastard.” So not much different from any other night.

I’ve got one leg in my fleece leggings with a bunny on the hip when something shatters downstairs. Everything comes into sharp focus. The books on the floor, the white canopy suspended over my bed, the piles of clothes bursting from my closet. Yanking on my leggings, I stumble to my door.

Mom’s crying downstairs.

Dad’s voice booms through the house as I reach the hallway. “This is not a negotiation! I’ve already made up my mind!”

My pulse roars in my head. I knew he was mad, but I didn’t know he was this mad. I back into my room and am closing the door when the front door slams. A high-pitched keening sound drifts up the stairs but I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

What did he decide?

I take the stairs two at a time but stop short when I reach the bottom. Mom’s crumpled in the middle of the floor, her head in her hands. The base of one of those squat glasses Dad drinks Scotch from lies on its side against a wall, the top shattered. Broken glass reflects the light from the chandelier and amber liquid pools against the baseboard. But that’s not what stops my heart. In my almost seventeen years, the only time I’ve seen Mom on the floor was for yoga or a family portrait.

Never like this.

It’s like whatever Dad said sucked the life out of her and all that’s left is her deflated shell.

“Mom?”

She shifts so she’s sitting cross-legged but doesn’t respond.

I move closer, unsure what to do. Miranda Vines prides herself on always being in control and projecting an image of superiority, “even when you’re not feeling it.” Imitating her is how I became the head Snow Bunny and the most popular girl in school.

Correction: formerly most popular.

Whatever happened with Dad has broken her.

“Mom,” I say again, a little louder this time.

She takes a shuddering breath, like the effort is too much. “Your father left.”

Obviously. But he leaves all the time, especially after they argue—not fight, “argue.” Because “civilized people don’t fight.” Besides, you don’t run one of the biggest craft breweries in Boulder without spending a lot of time there, even when it’s inconvenient for your family. “Yeah, so?”

She looks up at me and my insides twist. Her normally perfect makeup is smudged beneath her bloodshot eyes and tears stream down her face, dampening her formerly crisp blouse. “No. He left.” The energy she puts into the last word makes her sink farther inside herself.

“Left?” Alarm bells clang that Something is Wrong! Something is Wrong! but my brain refuses to catch up. “To go to Mischief.” It’s a statement, not a question. His brewery is open late so he’s always there at odd hours. Because if what she’s saying is true—

“Brianna, your father has left us.”

 

 

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