The Secret Side of Empty Read online

  CONTENTS

  CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Copyright © 2014 by Maria E. Andreu

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950819

  E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5205-7

  Cover images: Bicycle scene © Thinkstock/Oleg Podzorov;

  Girl © Shutterstock/Andrei Aleshyn

  Designed by Frances J. Soo Ping Chow

  Edited by Lisa Cheng

  Published by Running Press Teens

  An Imprint of Running Press Book Publishers

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  2300 Chestnut Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19103–4371

  Visit us on the web! www.runningpress.com/kids

  For Pablo,

  We made it.

  For Andreanna and Zachary, my A through Z,

  my beginning and my end.

  My everything.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “You’re a menace to pedestrians everywhere. I hope you know that,” I say, looking back at the old lady whose toes Chelsea just narrowly missed crunching.

  Chelsea laughs, tosses back her head, and waves her right hand at me in cheerful dismissal. I notice two things. One is the delicate charm bracelet that jingles on her right wrist, with its little bejeweled soccer ball charm her dad got her the other day, just because. The second is that her hands still look so much like the way they did that first day in kindergarten, all thin fingers, delicate, pale, long. I wonder if generation after generation of living in big houses and having everything makes people prettier somehow, maybe a good nutrition, superior genes thing.

  I put down the visor to check out my eyeliner. Chelsea’s cousin Siobhan and I make eye contact for a split second. She looks away first, but by a short moment. Awkward. I check her out for an instant longer.

  You can see the family connection between her and Chelsea: same snub nose, same skin that looks like a few layers have gotten rubbed off and it’s just not thick enough to hold in all her veins and guts and stuff. On Chelsea, it’s angel pink. On Siobhan, it’s blotchy. Chelsea’s perfectly athletic supermodel height has also not made it across the cousin lines. Siobhan is short and stubby, and seems a little irritated by the ticket she’s drawn in the genetic lottery.

  Siobhan says, “Anyway, so then it turns out it’s not just regular twin sheets, as if it’s not bad enough I have to sleep on a twin bed, which I haven’t done since . . . I don’t think I’ve ever done, actually . . . it’s not just a regular twin, it’s, like, some freakishly long twin, so all the sheets my mom picked up at the mall don’t even fit. So we had to go exchange them to get this special college length, and they had nothing cute in that weird size. Nothing.” She stops to let the true horror of that fact sink in. No. Cute. Sheets. She may just need to rethink this whole college thing with a catastrophe like that looming.

  I think—not for the first time—that Siobhan needs more bad things to happen in her life. Not that I’m wishing her ill, exactly, but I think she needs something to put her life in perspective. If not personal hardship, maybe a trip to Malawi might even do the trick.

  “And, I don’t know, I mean, I guess I’ll have to wait and see until I meet them, but my roommates sound like weirdos.”

  Chelsea seems to actually like her cousin. This baffles me. She asks, with real concern in her voice, “Why do you think so?”

  “I mean, one is from, like, Alaska. Some kind of hunting bizarro chick, maybe? Who knows? And the other one . . . Margarita Perez or something. Some Spanish kid, from, like, the Bronx. Who will probably be selling drugs right out of our dorm room. Either way it sounds like they’ll both be packing heat.”

  Chelsea glances over at me for about three nanoseconds, then away. That look tells me that she doesn’t want me to make a thing of it. “Oh, Siobhan. You know M.T. is Spanish.”

  You can tell that if she once knew, she has long since forgotten, like all other unpleasant facts in her life.

  “But you don’t look Spanish,” says Siobhan.

  I fight back the urge to say, “What does ‘Spanish’ look like?”

  I guess I don’t look like what most people think of when they think of Spanish, if they think of it at all. I’m pale white and I’ve got blondish hair, which I sometimes help along with a little lemon juice. Which eventually turns it into a split-ends mess, but, oh well. Because, yeah, some people who speak Spanish are also white. When people try to guess my nationality (and you’d be surprised how often that is), I get everything—Greek, Italian, Russian, Croatian. I am like the blot test of heritage. Ukrainians see Ukrainian. Poles see Polish. Italians invariably see Italian.

  “Yeah,” Siobhan says, recovering, but not well. “I mean, I don’t mean, I mean, you’re like . . . what, like . . . a genius, right? Rooming with you would be fine, right? It actually has nothing to do with, like, where anyone’s from, like, originally. Just, the Bronx, you know?”

  “No, I get it,” I say. I don’t get it, but I don’t want to keep watching her turn this alarming shade of red, either, and I don’t care enough to start something over it. I’m not proud enough of the whole “Spanish” thing to take up the fights of “my” people. I kind of hate it, actually.

  Siobhan looks relieved that she averted a Racial Incident, the kind she’s heard about on some MTV reality show. I turn back to the road and try to focus on the fun side of the afternoon.

  Despite the fact that Chelsea is a terrible driver, I love hanging out in her car. And not just because it’s a BMW 3 Series in a beautiful pewter, with a sunroof I could play with all day. It’s more that adventures always seem cooler when they’re moving. We are in the next town over from Willow Falls, a town that actually has a decent strip. A lot of kids drive up and down between the diner on one end and the Ann Taylor store at the other end, so we almost always r
un into someone we know. Sometimes we park and walk it, but today we cruise, listening to bad music on the radio and keeping cool in the AC.

  Siobhan goes back to safer ground: the college thing. “Yeah, anyway, so it’s a good school. They have so many great classes in my major. I think it was those internships that really paid off, you know? That and the SAT classes. It was nice to get into an Ivy, but I think a smaller school is just a better environment for me, you know? And plus, when I went on the visit, everyone seemed so friendly.”

  The War and Peace of college decisions, this one. She made it months ago, but she’s still reliving it, like she’s got college decision post-traumatic stress syndrome.

  Finally, it seems like Siobhan may be getting the clue that she is only talking about herself, so she changes the subject to include other topics, like what we think about her new college.

  “I mean, you should definitely come up and check it out,” she says, looking at Chelsea. “You could have a great time there, and they have a great sports program. You should talk to some of the coaches.”

  It’s weirdly quiet for a second.

  “Oh, and you too, of course . . . M.T. . . .” She still stumbles over my “new” name, because the last time she came east to stay a week with Chelsea’s family, we were still in eighth grade and I still went under my full name, not my initials. You can tell she doesn’t approve, but she doesn’t have the guts to say so. But I can imagine she’s also glad she doesn’t have to try to pronounce my real name.

  “Yeah, that would be awesome,” says Chelsea. “We should definitely go, M.T. You think your parents would let you spend a weekend up there? I could drive. Road trip!” She stares at me way longer than any driver should take her eyes off the road, so I feel obligated to stop this little college-visit train.

  “Yeah, I’m actually . . . I think I’m not going to college.” I’ve been meaning to drop this on Chelsea for a while, ever since she started taking weekend visits and SAT prep courses junior year.

  “What!” she says, but it shocks her enough to look back at the road. “Oh. Very funny. Haha. Is it that you want to go to a bigger school? With your grades you should be able to get in anywhere.”

  “Yeah, college, I mean, who cares, right? More indoctrination, being told what to read and what to think. I think I want to get out there and live, you know what I mean?”

  Even I don’t know what I mean, but I think I put on a pretty convincing performance. I mentally pat myself on the back for using a big word when lying about not wanting any more education.

  Siobhan is sputtering. I have just blown up her world. “I don’t understand,” she says. “Are you talking about traveling around for a year or something? Doing the backpacking-through-Europe thing? Deferring enrollment? A gap year?”

  “I’m talking about not going to college,” I say.

  While Siobhan is still sputtering in shock, a car full of boys pulls up next to us. They hold up McDonald’s bags to the windows and make weird faces at us.

  “Who are those guys?” says Siobhan. “Do you know them?”

  “The driver plays in my brother’s tennis league. None of the other ones looks familiar,” says Chelsea.

  “Isn’t that Sarah’s old boyfriend in the back?” I ask.

  Chelsea squints and looks at them. “Mmmm . . . maybe? He looks familiar, yeah.”

  The driver rolls down the window and says something. They’re on my side, so I roll down my window.

  “My friends just bet me I couldn’t throw a fry and have you catch it.”

  “Your friends are going to win that bet because I am not a trained seal,” I say. His friends all laugh.

  “We’ll give you a present!”

  “Chels, green light, take off!” says Siobhan. Chelsea guns it. The boys race to catch up, weaving past other cars until we get to another red light next to each other.

  “We have soda!” says one in the back.

  I turn to Chelsea. “Soda is intriguing. I’m kind of thirsty.”

  Chelsea calls back in her best flirty voice, “We’ll take soda, but there will be no fry catching.”

  Everyone but the driver gets out of the car and comes over to ours. In the middle of the street. One of them—a cute one with big, dark green eyes—carries two Sprites and an energy drink. I roll down the window and take them, then hold up the energy drink. “Do we look lethargic?” I say to him.

  He smiles, and it’s like lamps have been turned on in his eyes, lighting up his whole face.

  “It’s what we’ve got,” he says.

  The light turns green and his friend takes off driving. They all run after the car.

  Chelsea giggles. “The driver is kind of cute.”

  “I like Soda Guy.”

  “Yeah, he was totally checking you out. But let’s make this interesting for them,” says Chelsea, turning off the main drag, then driving fast a few blocks ahead and coming on to the strip going in the opposite direction.

  We drive about a block until they pass by us, going the other way. All their windows open up and one of the guys pops out of the sunroof. “How did you guys get over there?” screams the driver. Chelsea shrugs and smiles and accelerates a little too fast.

  “Oh my God, Chelsea!” says Siobhan from the backseat, the “oh” a little scream. I hear screeching tires. The guys have done a U-turn and are behind us again. At the next red light, they pull up.

  The driver hangs out his window. “You trying to lose us?”

  “Honey, if I was trying to lose you, you’d be lost,” says Chelsea.

  A chorus of boys say, “Ooooh,” at the challenge.

  “Yeah?” says the driver. “Let’s see.”

  I’m disappointed, because I want more excuses to talk to Soda Guy. Where is the fun in losing them?

  Chelsea switches into NASCAR mode, peeling off the main strip at the next light. She blazes through a red light and, surprisingly, the boys don’t follow. Chelsea makes one turn, then another. I think we’ve lost them, but when I turn around, I see them about a block behind us.

  “They’re still following us!” yells Siobhan.

  “Not to worry,” says Chelsea, making another right, then a left, then a right and . . . turning right into a dead end.

  Before Chelsea can put the car in the reverse, the boys pull up and block our exit. And all get out of the car and walk toward ours.

  “Lock the doors! Lock the doors!” says Siobhan.

  “Relax, they’re just playing around,” I say.

  They stand around our car, like now that they’ve caught us they don’t know what to do.

  “Come out,” says Soda Guy, standing by my window now, mouthing the words in an exaggerated way. I get a better look at him. He’s got messy brown hair and glasses I hadn’t noticed before.

  I jerk my head in Siobhan’s direction and shake my head. “I can’t,” I say.

  “We won’t bite,” he says, making a chomping motion with his hand.

  I open the window about a dime’s width.

  Siobhan screeches from the backseat, “Are you crazy?”

  “Hey, see, that wasn’t so bad, right?” he says.

  I smile.

  “Are you from Oakberg?”

  “Willow Falls.”

  “Yeah? I’ve never seen you at school,” he says.

  “That’s because I don’t go to Willow.”

  “Ooooh, mysterious. So are you, like, a girl genius who finished college at seven? Are you now practicing medicine?”

  “Something like that.”

  I hear Chelsea giggle at something Tennis Guy just said to her.

  Siobhan is getting more frantic by the minute. “Chelsea, there is a lady looking at us from her porch over there.” Siobhan is seriously so annoying. But it’s not Chelsea’s fault. You can’t judge people by who they’re related to. I am the poster child for that.

  “We’re cornered and we’re late,” I say to Soda Guy. “Can you offer assistance?”

 
; He scrunches his nose and tilts his head to one side.

  “I think it would be more fun if we could talk for a while longer,” he says.

  I hear Tennis Guy and Chelsea discussing the logistics of a good drag race. Tennis Guy is clearly into Chelsea. But then most guys are. Another one of the guys in the car nudges the back of the car a little. Siobhan jumps.

  “We really have to get home,” I say to Soda Guy.

  He nods. “Okay, maybe next time?”

  I nod.

  He nods again. For a second it’s awkward, the two of us bobbing our heads at each other and him not moving. Finally, he says, “Mission accepted. I’ll get them out of the way for you.” He grabs another guy by the shirtsleeve, whispers something in his ear, and they head over to Tennis Guy’s car. Suddenly I hear the car peeling out of the dead end in reverse.

  Tennis Guy and the other guy realize their friends are driving off with the car and leaving them behind. They start screaming at them and sprinting after the car. The coast is clear. The lady Siobhan had pointed out to Chelsea is still staring at us. There is a little kid standing next to her, kind of behind her leg. She motions to me, so I roll down the window a little more.

  “I didn’t know what those guys were up to, so I called the cops. Are you guys okay?” she says. I nod at her, but my heart starts to pound.

  Cops. I can’t do the cop thing. “Chels, let’s go home,” I say.

  “We’re fine,” Chelsea calls out. “Tell them it was just a crazy teenage mating ritual!”

  The woman shakes her head at us. Siobhan punches Chelsea in the arm. I sigh in relief when Chelsea guns it out of there.

  CHAPTER TWO

  An army of Central American men with big machines strapped to their backs are swooshing away every leaf on the unnaturally green lawns that I am biking past. These Guatemalan and Mexican men—that’s who people around here think of when they think “Spanish.”

  They know better than to pigeonhole and stereotype, the residents of this fine suburb. They’re college educated. They’ve got some stamps on their passports. They know about South America and Central America and Spain and all that stuff. But these guys and the women who keep the inside of their houses spotless and their kids’ diapers changed are their first thought when “Spanish” comes up. Not me, who comes over to help their kids with math and is in contention for valedictorian. Not Greek-, French-, Russian-faced me.