My Sweetest Escape. Chelsea Cameron M.

and the video games the guys had probably left scattered around. I saw the “Skyrim” box and smiled. Renee couldn’t get enough of that game. It had consumed quite a bit of her time over Christmas break.

      I flopped down onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Even that was clean.

      A thud sounded a second later as Renee and Paul brought in some of my stuff.

      “Since we only have three bedrooms, you, my dear sister, get to stay in the newly refurbished basement. You’re lucky we decided to put in a guest room,” Renee said, panting.

      “Great,” I said, although I wouldn’t have minded staying on the plush leather couch. It was the largest couch I’d ever seen and took up most of the living room.

      “Why don’t you show her around and I’ll get the rest of the stuff,” Paul said. I got up from the couch and Renee led me down the stairs into the basement.

      “Welcome to the man cave,” Renee said, waving her arm. A man cave indeed. A bar, a pool table, yet another gigantic couch and a television large enough for a movie theater. There were also several sports team posters, including the Red Sox, the Patriots and the Celtics. Go teams.

      Renee led me toward the back of the space where there was a small guest room with a bathroom right beside it. Thank God. I wouldn’t have to share a bathroom. I’d done that in the dorms enough to last a lifetime.

      “So this is it.” The room was decorated in tan and black, which was boring, but nice.

      I sat down on the large bed and looked around at my new home.

      “Okay, we have some ground rules,” Renee said, leaning against the dresser. Don’t even bother to beat around the bush, sis. Go ahead and get right to the point.

      “Number one,” she said, holding up one finger. “You will inform me where you are and who you are with at all times. You will keep in touch via cell phone. You will also answer said phone when I call you, no matter what.”

      I clamped my mouth shut. I didn’t want to provoke her in the middle of her speech that she’d clearly rehearsed, probably on Paul.

      “Second—” she held up another finger “—there will be no partying. No drinking. No drugs. No substances of any kind other than aspirin. There will also be no passing out. Third, there will be a curfew which you will follow or suffer the consequences. Fourth, I may not be your mother, but you will treat me with respect, and that goes for the other people in this house. And fifth...” She didn’t seem to be able to come up with number five.

      “Fifth?” I said after a few seconds of silence.

      “I had a fifth one, but I can’t remember it right now,” she snapped. “But that doesn’t negate the other four. Do you agree to them?”

      “Yeah,” I said. What did it matter?

      “You said yes way too easily. I don’t believe you.”

      Jesus. I was being criticized for being too agreeable.

      “Whatever, Renee. Can I just be alone now?” I turned over on the bed, touching the sheets that were no doubt Egyptian cotton and had a crazy high thread count. Of course.

      “Listen,” she said, sitting down next to me. Ugh, she always started her lectures like this. Just like Mom. Although, Renee’s lectures always had more cursing in them than Mom’s.

      “You’re going through something right now. A phase, if you will. I’ve been there. Even Paul was there.” Yeah, I found that extremely hard to believe. And she had no idea what I was going through. She thought she did, but she didn’t. No one did, and I couldn’t explain it. I twisted the elephant charm on my bracelet.

      And then she smacked me on the shoulder. Hard.

      “But it’s time for you to get your head out of your ass and straighten up. Understand?”

      “Why with the violence?” I flipped over, jumped up and shoved her back. “Look, it’s not my fault that Mom decided to dump me on you. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be.”

      She glared at me, her face turning red.

      “Look, I don’t like the fact that my once-perfect sister, the one sister I knew would never screw up, has fallen off the wagon of epic proportions. You’re the one I never worried about. You got better grades than I ever dreamed of getting. You were the good one. And then...”

      She didn’t need to finish. And then everything happened, and that girl, the one who obsessed over straight A’s and wanted to be the president of every club and who had her sights set on being valedictorian and someday running a huge company or working for the government or doing something important with her life, disappeared.

      Nine months ago, everything changed, and everything I thought I wanted seemed stupid and pointless. Or maybe I’d just finally realized it was stupid and pointless. That had less to do with what had happened and more to do with him. Even thinking his name was like taking a bullet in the chest.

      “Yeah, then I decided to screw it all up. I know. I’ve heard the story. I was there. You don’t need to reiterate it to me.”

      She shrugged. “Well, nothing else has worked, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I’ve also considered beating you senseless, but that’s usually frowned upon.”

      “Go for it,” I said, sitting back down. Wasn’t going to work.

      “Oh, believe me, I’d love to. But then you’d be unconscious and I wouldn’t be able to get information out of you, soooo...”

      “And what information is that?”

      “What the hell happened to you to make you like this?”

      That was something she could try to beat out of me, but it wasn’t going to happen. I shoved her aside and went back out into the main area of the basement.

      “I guess I just decided all that stuff was bullshit. Getting good grades, being the good daughter. Where did it get me? Nowhere. And I was miserable. I never got to have any fun because I was always working or trying to get those good grades or planning some sort of event for one of the million clubs I was in. I got tired of it, okay?” I understood them being upset about me partying and that sort of thing, but just because I wasn’t getting straight A’s anymore, that was a reason to have a coronary?

      Renee grabbed my shoulder to stop me from running up the steps. I tried to shake her off, but she yanked me around to face her.

      “No, that’s not it. You’ve spent your entire life following the rules. You don’t do that and then just flip a switch and change. People don’t change like that unless something makes them.” I’d had this conversation with her, with my parents, with my now ex-boyfriend and ex-friends. I told them all the same thing.

      “Just leave me alone.” Everyone had, eventually.

      Renee glared at me, her eyes turning a steely blue like they did when she was determined about something. Getting her to back off was going to be a challenge. She took stubborn to a whole new level.

      “Fine. Go get the rest of your stuff.” She let go of my arm and jerked her chin up the stairs.

      “Fine,” I said, stomping up the stairs.

      Chapter 3

      “Hey, Jos,” Darah said, coming in while I was putting my clothes away in the dresser. Her voice scared the crap out of me and I dropped the Fall Out Boy T-shirt I’d been refolding.

      “Hey,” I said, picking up the shirt and turning around. I could never figure out how Darah and Renee had become friends, because they were like night and day. But out of all of Renee’s friends, I liked Darah the best. I hadn’t met Taylor yet, I supposed, so I couldn’t judge her.

      “Are you settling in okay?” It was then that I noticed she