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CHAPTER ONE

Families are complicated Mine, maybe a little extra

I’randuess she’d be, the old Mrs Caulter of the very rich side of the fao of a heart attack I can’t say I’m sad, even a little, because I barely knew the wo

What a e has turned out to be But that’s a whole other story I’ll tell you though? I’ht road to hell, is how it looks to me

I don’t knohy getting dressed is taking so long, it’s not like I have a lot to choose fro black, I’ve got one dress It’s an expensive Little Black Dress that ave me for Christo to fancy places where so like this dress would be appropriate I’irl, if you see what I mean

And plus? The dress is really sexy The fabric is slinky and it sticks to me like a second skin It’s not low-cut but it’s really short I mean when I think of how the nuns at Catholic school would react to this dress, I shiver And laugh a little, I adive me

It’s not a dress that a stepfather should give to his daughter In my opinion Or a dress to wear to a funeral, for that matter

But it’s all I’ve got, so it’s what I’ Maybe I can find an excuse not to take off

So I get the dress on and avoid looking in a hts Mydownstairs to drive us to the cemetery

It will be the first ti forward to it

“I hope you and Scott can patch things up,” my mother says, before she’s even pulled away from the curb “You used to be so close”

“Mother? There’s nothing to patch We were never close Not for five minutes I don’t kno you’ve cooked up this fantasy, but just…just stop”

“Now, Ainsley,” she says, and oh how I hate when she says that, the tone saying you’re always doing the wrong thing

MyMrs Caulter has been worth it She’s gone fro able to pay the rent half the tience with leather seats and a moonroof Of course, she has to put up with bullshit of epic proportions from this new fa houess to her, that moonroof makes it all hile

Do I sound bitter? I hope not Because I’ve worked all that shit out long ago I’ s turned out, actually, because I learned how to make my oay in the world without any help from jerks I’m independent and I like it that way

If only coging me down into the crazy

“So Scott’s definitely coht maybe with his business empire and all, he wouldn’t have time”

“You say ‘business empire’ like the ideawith financial success Do you know the stock in his in to tell you what he’s done for my stock portfolio”

“I never pictured a day when my mother would say the words ‘my stock portfolio’”

“I know,” says ot turned off and we ate cold beans out of a can? Seems like another life”

Well, it does to me too But I still wouldn’t ot electricity now, and a beamer, but she’s also married to a class-A asshole And o and I don’t see why a shitload of e that Make it worse, probably