The last few days of school were a special kind of hell for Catherine. She finished her exams on the first days of the last week, which left three more days that she had to go every day, whether she wanted to or not.
It was go, or stay at home and do nothing.
She was only allowed her phone at school, and that was to call someone if she needed something. At home, she handed it back over to her father.
There was a tension in her home that she hadn’t felt before, too. A silent fight that constantly brewed between her mother and father, fueled by resentment and stubbornness. The two didn’t speak, or when they did, they spoke very little.
Her mother took Michel to Detroit the first week of June. Dante chose to stay home with Catherine.
Catherine’s guilt was a killer. She felt like everything that was happening around her, was entirely her fault. And it was.
She didn’t want her parents fighting over her, yet they were. She didn’t want to hold her father back from taking Michel to Detroit like he had planned for an entire year, yet she had. She didn’t want breakfast and supper to be loaded with silence and shifting stares.
This wasn’t her family.
Not at all.
Maybe if all her sadness was focused on just her parents, then Catherine could deal. She could make things better, do what she needed to do, and be who they wanted her to be.
Except it wasn’t.
It was also Cross.
It was a lot Cross.
Catherine hated school the most because she hurt and her eyes burned and her lungs ached every time she had to pass him in the hall. Forced smiles and guarded eyes were their favorite thing, now. He didn’t come too close, and she ducked and dodged just to avoid a pass-by in the hallway, if she could.
Friends.
That’s what she had said.
Friends.
Catherine was pretty sure being friends wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.
This was heartbreak, and it sucked.
After breaking it off with Cross two weeks ago in an empty classroom, her only goal now was to make it to the end of the year.
Make it, and not break down.
She had ten minutes left.
“Hey, Catherine.”
Unsure she had actually heard her name be called, as she was zoned out with an earbud in one ear, and a book spread open in front of her, she didn’t look up. The library had become a safe haven for her those last few days of classes when she didn’t need to attend, but went simply to avoid another conversation with her father. Hiding in the library when she didn’t need to attend homeroom or final assemblies meant she didn’t need to risk running into Cross or faking being okay.
She was so not okay.
Without him, that was her thing.
Apparently.
“Catherine,” a guy said again.
He tugged her earbud out.
Catherine found one of Cross’s friends standing next to her table. “What?”
“Do you know where Cross is at?”
“Um … no.”
The guy—Erin—frowned. “He hasn’t shown up the last two days.”
“Maybe he didn’t have exams these days.”
“Sure, but none of us can get a text back from him, either.”
Catherine suppressed the nagging anxiety bubbling in her chest. “Sorry, I don’t know where he is.”
“Yeah, all right. Thanks, I guess.”
She waited until Erin was gone from her sight, before she pulled out her cell phone. It was probably going to cost her another punishment to use the phone for something other than what her father demanded, but she was willing to take that risk.
Just to be sure …
Is everything good?
Catherine stared at her phone, and sent the text message to Cross before she could think better of it.
It took a few minutes before she finally got a response.
Why?
That was it.
That was all he replied.
You haven’t been to school the last couple of days, so I thought maybe something was up. Friends can worry or ask things like that, right?
God, she felt stupid even saying that.
And damn, it hurt.
Friends can. Later, Catty.
The bell rang up above Catherine’s head, signaling classes were over for the day. She didn’t really hear it because she was too busy staring at Cross’s reply.
He didn’t answer, she realized. He didn’t say he was okay, or fine, or anything at all.
The drip of wetness that fell on the back of her hand made Catherine blink. More drops fell. Her tears. Great. She quickly wiped the tears away, but they just kept forming. The stupid things kept falling.
Catherine had already cleared out her locker. Her mother was probably waiting in the parking lot, and she just wanted to go home. She kept her face hidden by tilting her head down, although the hallways were mostly empty, anyway.
Sure enough, Catrina waited in her white Porsche, a car she only drove in the summer months. Catherine slipped inside the vehicle, dropped her bag to the floor, and buckled up. She kept her gaze stuck out the passenger window, determined to not cry again, and to not let her mother know she was upset.
Catrina Marcello had never done very well with tears. She didn’t have time for them. Catherine remembered time and time again as a child when her mother would repeat to her that tears helped nothing and no one.
Girls like her, Catrina would always say, do not cry.
Catherine didn’t want that spiel again.
“How was the last day?” her mother asked, pulling out of the school parking lot.
“Long.”
“I bet.” Catrina reached over and patted her daughter’s knee. “Next year is a new year. It can be a better year, Catherine.”
She kept her shoulder turned. “Yeah, Ma, I know.”
Catrina wasn’t the type of woman who filled silence with useless chatter, so the long drive home to Freeport was mostly quiet. It was only once Catherine was safely inside the Marcello home that she finally felt as though she could breathe again.
Dropping her messenger bag and kicking her shoes off, Catherine didn’t even bother to put them away.
Catrina’s number one pet peeve.
“Don’t you leave those things there, Catty. I am not your slave in this house.”
Catherine flinched at the nickname, and while her mother using it should have been a sign that she wasn’t angry, her instinct to fix, fix, fix kicked in hard. It wouldn’t leave her alone lately. “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry, Ma.”
She quickly grabbed her things and headed for the hallway closet.
“Catherine, wait,” her mother said.
“It’s my fault, Ma. Sorry, I’ll put it away.”
“Catherine, look at me.” Her mother grabbed her arm, and pulled hard, spinning Catherine around to face her. Catrina’s gaze skipped over Catherine quickly, her eyes softening, and her hold loosening. “Why are you crying, reginella? I was only kidding, I—”
Catherine shook her head, and pushed the hair that had fallen in her eye out of the way. “It’s okay, Ma. It’s just been a long day, and I’m really tired.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not, I’m—”
“Lying to me,” her mother interjected softly. “Why are you lying to me?”
Something painful lodged in Catherine’s throat, but she got the words out anyway. “I don’t want to keep causing problems, Ma. It doesn’t matter what’s wrong, I can handle it, okay? There’s enough problems in this house without me adding to it with something that won’t help at all, so please leave it alone.”
“Problems.” Catrina blew out a slow breath, and still kept hold of Catherine, refusing to let her move. “There’s no problems, Catty.”
“That’s bullshit, Ma, but whatever. If there’s nothing wrong with you, then there’s nothing wrong with me. No lies and secrets, right? It’s Daddy’s new thing—no lies or secrets here.”
Catherine pulled from her mother’s grasp, and dumped her stuff in the closet without care.
“Please talk to me,” Catrina said.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Then why are you still crying?”
“Because, Ma!”
Catrina blinked, and straightened a bit in her heels. “Catherine.”
“Everything sucks right now because I did something stupid. If it’s not you ignoring Daddy, then he’s ignoring you, or he’s ignoring me, or he’s pissed off because you took Michel to Detroit. We can’t even have dinner without it being silent and awkward, since nobody wants to talk or even look at each other! Me, I did that, and I just want this not to have happened. I’m sorry, Ma. I messed up, I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Catherine. You have to know that. It’s more than you, especially with your father and I.”
“Really, Ma? Because he’s pissed because you didn’t tell him what you knew about me, or the choices you made for me, and that’s still about me. You can spin the details, but it all comes back around, so. And then there’s—” Catherine stopped herself just in time, muttering, “Never mind, I just want to go to bed for the rest of the day.”
“No, you should finish,” her mother urged.
“I don’t want to.”
Catherine turned on her heel, and headed down the hallway. Catrina only let her get a few steps before she found herself looking her mother in the face once more.
“Finish,” Catrina said gently.
Catherine was not accustomed to that kind of tone from her mother.
“Cross,” Catherine whispered. “There’s him, too. But he doesn’t matter, or he doesn’t get to in this house because Daddy doesn’t want him to. So yeah, Ma, just leave it alone.”
“Give your father some time with Cross,” Catrina said, shrugging. “It’s all you can do.”
“It’s already too late, Ma.”
Catrina reached up and used the heel of her hand to wipe Catherine’s tears away. “Please don’t cry, mia bambina. It hurts me when you cry, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m not like you, Catherine, I don’t show these things like you do. So I just … I don’t know what to do for you.”
“I’m sorry. For everything, Ma.”
Catrina pulled Catherine in for a tight hug that ached, but soothed at the same time. “Don’t be sorry, my girl. Not everything is for you to fix.”
Maybe not.
She was still the cause.
“I’m sorry about Cross, too,” her mother murmured.
Catherine shrugged. “I wanted to make it better.”
She made it worse.
It still hurt.
A lot.
At least her mother made her feel like she wasn’t going to shatter all over the floor. Not for the moment, anyway.
The old Marcello mansion was a huge estate that Catherine loved. It held her very fondest memories of her family—her entire family—because they so often gathered at their grandparents’ home as a group for everything from dinners, to parties. Sure, as they got older, and busier, the parties and dinners had lessened, but the nostalgic feeling she felt stepping inside the large front foyer was still the very same.
Like coming home.
“There’s my Catty girl,” her grandfather, Antony, said.
For a man in his late seventies, her grandfather barely ever missed a beat.
“Hey, Grandpapa,” Catherine said, taking his hug.
“Must be different without your brother at the house all the time, isn’t it?”
“He’s been gone for a month, now. It’s all right.”
Antony laughed, his face crinkling from his age. “I’m sure you miss him.”
Catherine winked. “I’m sure I do, too.”
“Go, find one of your cousins. Your grandmother is tittering about in the kitchen, hanging over everyone’s shoulders like she does.”
And Catherine would make sure to avoid the kitchen just because of that. Her grandmother, Cecelia, was a tyrant in the kitchen, but more so now that she had let her sons’ wives cook their big dinners. She had to make sure everything was perfect. Catherine could not remember her mother, or her aunts, ever complaining about it.
It was definitely an Italian thing.
“Do you know where John is?” Catherine asked, referring to her oldest cousin, Johnathan.
Antony’s brow furrowed. “In the dining room, the last I saw. He and Andino were playing with my old cards.”
“Papa, you should be sitting down somewhere.”
Catherine’s father came into the house, followed by Catrina.
“Oh, you better not start that nonsense today, Dante,” Antony muttered, heading in the opposite direction of his son. “Not too old to—”
“Don’t get yourself worked up, now,” her father replied, following after Antony. “I was joking.”
“You were not, and you know it. I only look old.”
“So you keep saying,” Dante said.
“So I know!”
Catrina rolled her eyes, and passed her daughter by with a smile.
Catherine eventually did find her oldest cousin sitting in the dining room, but he was entertaining his youngest sister, Lucia. John was a few years older than Catherine, and fully engrained in the family business.
Which was exactly why Catherine needed to talk to him …
Sometimes, John could be a little high-strung, or that’s how their family liked to put it. That’s how everyone had always described John. High-strung, hard to focus, and a little too wild for his own good. When he was around seventeen, they finally learned why John sometimes went off like he did. He focused on certain things like it was an obsession he couldn’t kick, stayed up for days at a time, or chased after anything that gave him a high. From girls, to drugs, to dangerous stuff. Anything.
John could go from being really low, to really high with his moods in very fast, and seemingly short, amounts of time. It didn’t only effect his moods, but also his behavior, and how he reacted to those around him and his environment. His manic episodes as a teenager had been bad, and they only worsened until the diagnosis was made, and medication was given.
He suffered from Bipolar Disorder, also known as Manic-Depression.
Now, John was doing okay. Catherine really wanted it to keep being okay for her cousin. He was close to her father, like a second son, in a way. She always remembered John being at their house when she was growing up, sometimes more than he was at his own. It had been hard to see Dante panic and try everything he could when John went missing for weeks at a time, only to show up in a hospital, out of it from drugs, or fighting, or simply because he crashed. When his body couldn’t take it anymore, and he just crashed, Catherine thought those times had been the worst for their whole family.
“John?”
He didn’t look up from his sister counting cards as he said, “Hey, Catty.”
“Jesus, I hate all of you, now. Everybody uses that stupid name, you know.”
John chuckled. “It fits, though.”
Not for reasons you know …
She eyed her Uncle Lucian, Johnathan’s father, as he passed through the dining room with her Uncle Giovanni right behind him. Once they were out of earshot, her attention went back to her cousin.
“I have a question,” Catherine said quietly.
“Shoot, kiddo.”
“You know I’m sixteen, right?”
“You know I like pasta, right?”
Catherine’s brow dipped. “What does that have anything to do with what I said?”
John smirked, and looked up at her. “Nothing, I just like to fuck with you. What’s up?”
She pulled out her phone, brought up a series of text messages she had received from students who attended the Academy over the last four weeks since school had ended, and pushed it across the table. John looked down at the screen, then used his finger to scroll through the messages, nodding as he went.
“Yeah, I figured that was going to happen when Michel headed out.”
Catherine shifted in her heels, and shot a look over her shoulder. She didn’t know why she was so goddamn nervous, as she really shouldn’t be. This entire thing was exactly what paid for the clothes she was wearing, the car they drove to get to their grandparents, and the house she was standing in.
Drugs, crime, and all the rest.
That’s what paid for it all.
Still, she had not been the one doing those things.
However, there seemed to be a lot of students from her school that kept messaging her thinking she absolutely could provide what they wanted. Catherine suspected because Michel was no longer readily available to supply, and Academy kids had no interest in buying their shit from someone on the street given their spoiled dispositions, they asked Catherine.
Did she know someone?
Could she get what they needed?
Money, money, money.
That’s what she heard, but it wasn’t what caught her interest. She was simply curious. How it worked, how to sell, or deal … whatever.
John kissed Lucia on the top of her head and said, “Go find Ma, huh? Get a snack for me, topina.”
“And me?” Lucia asked.
“And you.”
Catherine’s littlest cousin was gone in a flash, ready to make her big brother happy, and feed herself, too.
John turned back to Catherine. “I mean, I can get somebody to handle them. You’ll just need to pass on a phone number and a first name. Eventually, they’ll stop texting you for all this.”
“Yeah, but … is that, like, how Michel did it? They just called, and he delivered?”
Her cousin laughed. “No, not entirely.”
“Well, how?”
“Michel was a supply and demand kind of situation. He only made the effort if there was a large number of people wanting what he had at any given time. That’s kind of why he mostly dealt on Fridays, or Mondays, and went to parties. They had to make it worth his effort to go to wherever in the hell they were. They didn’t mind Michel’s game because they’re too privileged and lazy to figure out how to get a dealer that’ll cater to them. They’re not really addicts feeding a problem, just rich kids with too much money, and too much time to spare.”
John shrugged, adding, “Rich people are stupid that way, and their rich kids are even worse, Catherine. It’s like having their own personal drug dealer on speed dial that’s of the same standard, breeding, and privilege as them, which I think, makes them feel like they’re better than the average user on the street. It’s a mindset, and Michel liked to play into it. He played them really well. That’s probably why they’re messaging you, now.”
“Did my mom and dad know what Michel was doing?”
“Ah, yeah?”
“Really?”
John just looked at her, bored. “What are they going to say?”
Huh.
Then, her cousin’s gaze darted over her shoulder before he asked, “Is that something you’re interested in, Catty?”
“What, dealing?”
“I mean, sure. Your mom did; your father’s a mob boss. Our surname is Marcello. Don’t act like I’m asking something that’s abnormal for us.”
“It’s abnormal for me.”
“Only because you’re a little too sly for your own good,” her cousin replied. “You know, I run in some of the circles you’ve hung around in, too. Things you’ve done and gotten caught doing, I’ve heard about it. Your boy, there … Cross—”
“He’s not my anything,” Catherine interrupted, ignoring the twinge of pain in her chest.
She hadn’t seen or talked to Cross since that last text a month ago.
For now, it was better to stay that way.
“Whatever,” John said, waving it off, “my point is, just because you like to behave badly on the low, doesn’t mean people don’t know about it, Catherine. And maybe if you checked that nonsense a bit, you wouldn’t find yourself in trouble when you did get caught.”
“You’re getting off topic.”
“I’m really not, if you think about it.”
Catherine rolled her eyes skyward. “Just … whatever. Is that what those kids are looking for from me, somebody like Michel?”
John barked a laugh. “You can’t be like Michel, girl.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are a girl, Catty. It’s a whole different game when you’re supplying as a female. You’ve got to work them different, and play it different. That’s just how it works.”
Catherine crossed her arms. “Like my mom did, you mean?”
“Sort of, sure. Catrina was amazing at what she did, and she made a career out of supplying to the most elite in this country. People called on her simply because she was her, you know? So yeah, sort of.”
“I don’t want to be my mom.”
John tipped his hand as if to say, meh. “You can’t be her, either. There’s only ever one like her doing what she did at any given time. What you’re seeing on your phone isn’t like Catrina, it’s just small time dealing to kids who think they’re big time deals. And they’re not. But they pay, it’s money, and that’s how our business works. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Now, Catherine was even more curious.
And that was bad.
She knew it was bad because things were really good lately. For her, and her parents. Things were settled, the tension was gone, and her father didn’t look at her like he didn’t know who in the hell she was staring back at him.
Still …
Catherine had a terrible habit of chasing bad things.
Or something like that.
She hadn’t figured out what it was with her, yet. She didn’t know what she wanted to be, except good to her parents, and someone they could be proud of when they looked back at her. Her house was calm again, and her parents were happy.
“You could learn,” John suggested, taking Catherine from her thoughts. “Like anything, you just have to learn how to do it, Catty.”
“Learn how to deal.”
“How to supply.” He smirked again. “Use words that don’t make people feel like they’re doing something wrong or dirty. You never want to make someone feel like they shouldn’t be coming to you for what they want. It’s bad for business.”
“Bad for business,” she echoed.
“Lesson number one.”
Catherine’s attention caught her father heading through the other side of the dining room, with her mother at his side. They laughed about something, but barely paid any mind to Catherine and John at all.
“I’m not sure I want to do any of it at all,” she admitted.
“But you’re curious.”
Catherine shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be?”
“I was—that’s how I ended up where I am, doing what I do.”
John’s gaze drifted to where Dante and Catrina lingered in the entryway between the dining room and kitchen. Her mother whispered something in her father’s ear, making him grin. They were better again, and not battling their silent war of resentment and stubbornness. Although, Catherine wasn’t sure how the two worked through their issue. It happened behind closed doors, and pretty quickly after that conversation she had with her mother.
Catrina had been right.
Not everything was for her to fix.
“You’ll never know what it’s like unless you try, and then you’ll know if it’s something you want to do,” John added. “You’re playing with fire on your mom and dad, though. You can’t show them one face, and make another when their backs are turned. That’s bad for family.”
“What if they wouldn’t want me to be like you, or like them?”
“You don’t really know that, do you? You’ve never asked.”
Catherine didn’t have to ask.
She knew.
“You want to learn,” John said, “then you call Andino, and the rest we can worry about another time.”
“Just call. That’s it?”
“Call, yep.”
She snatched her phone up. “All right. Thanks.”
“But don’t take too long to decide,” John warned. “That’s the nature of this business, Catherine. Someone is always ready to step in where you don’t. You’re just another back to break on someone’s way to the top.”
Yeah, she got it.