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"But rehab isn’t really a lie," I replied pathetically "At least not if you hear Nix or my mom talk about it"

"What was it like?" Evaleen asked, sliding down froilded dresser "Was it really intense?"

"Yes," I admitted I hadn’t even had this conversation with Sloane or Exie yet I preferred never to think aboutcamp I had been sent to Most of the time I believed my soul was still intact, well, small pieces of it, but there were moments of weakness when I wasn’t so sure they hadn’t penetrated my mind "Lots and lots of therapy And Nix had several veterans visit and share their success stories with estured around the room lazily, as if Sloane’s room summed up our entire existence

"Spa ti skin and lect before I went in I nodded hed enviously "It sounds like vacation What I wouldn’t give for Nix to pahter, "No kidding Six ! Was it a?"

"No, obviously not" I looked at these two girls that had just asone they were They were five years older than me, which was an insane ahting fate and accepting it They were ale, about ready to enter our society co on and on about spa ti in their lives was already a vacation from reality and still they wanted s; how far down the morally deluded they had really fallen

Evaleen once pulled arden party when I was thirteen and slipped comfort inserts into my four inch puht anymore She whispered in o to dinner with Nix for the first tih to handle a four course meal and when dessert was over to simply tell hi and couldn’t be out any later She had shown entle would co up appearances

And Anaxandra had been the closest thing to an older sister I ever had She tweezed ht me the tricks of well-placed duct tape and Band-Aid placements and never let me cry in public Never She would somehow see tears form in my eyes from across entire ballrooms, race to me, scoop me up and hide me in the nearest bathroom until the tears stopped and she could reapply one six months and came back to invasion of the body snatchers I came back to sell-outs The reality of that epiphany was like a slice to my already battered heart What if that was round and coveted convictions and allowed the idea of spas and vacation to coment? That was the scariest question of all

"I was still processing Sam… It was kind of the opposite of a vacation" I breathed out in a shaky whisper

"Oh et over it already It’s not like he died You are being so drae blue eyes in an exaggerated circle and then re down at her nails as if they held the solution to world hunger

Exie smacked the back of her sister’s head with a sharp satisfaction "God, Ana, that is the ugliest thing you have ever said! What is wrong with you?"

"Ow!" Anaxandra rubbed at the back of her head and scowled at her little sister "What is wrong with you? And you know that Ivy is the only one upset about the accident Everyone else sees to coood o about Sam and enjoy what this her inmyself in Sloane’s bathroom I didn’t have ti the non-existent contents of an es andether I couldn’t breathe I couldn’t breathe I couldn’t breathe

Sloane appeared behind me and turneddaggers into hly on the back ofupside down and my face ardly placed between my knees

"It’s Ok, Ivy," Sloane murmured sweetly to me "Inhale Exhale Inhale Exhale Slowly, that’s it, slowly" Sloane’s voice held a gentle authority that I responded to ih this routine

The world started to come back into focus even as all the blood rushed towas beco back to the depths of my black, toxic soul

"Ivy sooner or later you’re going to have to get over this cry for attention," Evaleen taunted from the other roo to have yourself to bla with you two," Exie scolded as she joined us in the en suite bathroom "You’re just like everybody else It’s like you’ve turned into the the party downstairs She hit them with an insult that once upon a ti the Kool-Aid"

"Grow up, Ex," Anaxandra snarled "Soet it, you’ll accept what every single one of us eventually co, but one day you’ll have to stand in our shoes, one day when they offer you the proverbial Kool-Aid you’re going to drink it Just like we did, just like our mothers did, just like their mothers did Reaze to the oval vanityher head to Evaleen Both girls gave us onestare and then left to join the party downstairs

The three of us stood silent and frozen in the safety of Sloane’s bathroo Anaxandra’s ominous words Sloane was the first to idness She turned around and leaned forward on the bathrooe until her hands becaht?" Sloane whispered, avoiding her face in the mirror "What if we turn out just like them?"

A hundred different answers spun and twisted in my head but when I finally spoke it ith hope "What if we don’t?" I paused, letting the question settle in the air around us "Sloane, what if we don’t?" Each as spoken with solid intension and earnest strength There was so ly i to set aside without further examination