Page 4 (1/1)

The frat kept the good stuff in a locked cabinet in the back of the dining rooh the crowd, he found Kurt and Zane, two of his frat brothers and baseball teah a bottle of tequila Kurt held out a full shot glass by way of greeting Sean

"We ondering ere going to see your sorry ass in here" Both guys were already drunk enough to be sprawled on two beat-up leather couches

"If I knew you aiting on lass from Kurt, "I would have at least worn a tie"

Used to be, a couple of shots of tequila would make his throat burn and his eyes water But lately, he’d been drinking so ulp was no sweat He didn’t bother to wait for the buzz to hit hilass, and a couple o

Nu inside his chest had felt raw Splintered Broken Hell, he thought as he reached for the bottle and splashed er than that

One year ago, his faotten the news that his mother, Lisa, had cancer She’d been supposed to beat it, only forty-seven and in great shape She’d always eaten right and worked out, and taught her kids to do the same

But none of that had mattered Not how healthy she was supposed to be Not how hard she fought with hts Not even the fact that she had six kids and a husband who all needed her to live

Sean hadwith the rest of his family when she’d finally slipped co, as she drifted in and out of consciousness depending on how h they’d cranked up thehadn’t meant Sean had been able to prepare for it at all

Everythe pictures he knew she loved so much , and that had been her connection to the world outside her fifteen-by-fifteen-foot hospital room Pictures of his brothers and sisters and dad Pictures of the bayside path by their house where she’d alalked their dog Pictures of the e pink flowers bloomed Whenever she woke up, he’dfro

Each of his brothers and sisters had helped with so His oldest brother, Grant, who’d founded one of thebusinesses in Silicon Valley, had taken over the day-to-day of running the household finances andtheir parents’ portfolio Drew, his second oldest brother who had beco rock star in the past year, had wanted to cancel his European tour to sit in her hospital room with her, but his mother had made him promise not to do that, a promise he had made himself keep until those last feeeks Olivia, his middle sister, as a year ahead of hie ofsure their littlest sister, Madison, stayed on track for her senior year at high school and got all of her college applications in Justin, Sean’s twin brother, as also a junior at Stanford, had put his science brain to work on researching the best possible doctors and treatment plans Maddie, who loved to cook, le diet book that promised to cure cancer with nutrition And all of them had taken care of their father, Michael, who had barely left his wife’s side

Since her passing, Sean hadn’t taken a picture And threethrough his veins, he could still hear his father and Maddie sobbing, Grant and Drew cursing, and the scary silence froet out, get away frootten outside into the sunshine, before he even realized what he was doing, he’d lifted the classic 35iven him for his thirteenth birthday over his head and sh fro that it had shattered iain Not when they hadn’t helped one daet to the point where nothing could touch him Where he could pretend to be the carefree jock that everyone thought he was Stanford had begged his brother Justin to corades weren’t quite as good, but when coh for a scholarship Everyone looked at the Morrison twins and saw one as the brain, the other as the jock Only when they were at home did those labels fall away, and they were just brothers

For a ht The two of the video games upstairs But Justin had never been into frat parties, especially not when he could be hanging out in some science lab with one of his fellow brains Especially Taylor, the girl he was too -headed kids those tould have if they ever et it on

Zane finally pushed hi, "Ti up tonight Give me a ten-minute head start, Morrison," his friend said, "so that I don’t have to get second-best"

"Third best," Kurt said to Zane as he got up in just as wobbly a et in line behind me"

School had been back in session for teeks, and every night so far there had been a party during rush The main room was already overheated as everyone danced and drank The loud hter, the sour smell of beer that never left the frat house nocreorked to eradicate it--all of it felt like a vise tightening around Sean’s chest Just as he’d needed to get out of his et out of here, too

Sean was pushing through the crowd, hell-bent on reaching the door, when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks

Because he was looking at the irl in the world

See, Serena told herself as she keptto the ood tiotten to know her roo in different directions, but it was definitely aweso Serena wasn’t exactly sure what she would have done if souy had come up to her instead and wanted to dance with--