Cheerleading practice had run long, so I ran late to the theater's tech day. I'd texted Juan before rehearsal to go ahead, and I'd drive myself.

I jumped in my Prius. My hair was frizzing, so I tied it back in a knot. I'd had enough time to straighten my makeup, but I wore cheerleading sweats and a jacket with my last name printed on the back. It was frustrating that the coach insisted they print my full last name, Christian-Porter, rather than the Porter part that I preferred.

As I was driving, I used the car's hands-free feature to answer my brother's incoming call.

"Peanut," Parker said. "How are you?"

Hearing his voice was a breath of fresh air, even if he was one of the two people who still called me Peanut. The other was our father, and I hadn't spoken to him in two years. It was an embarrassing nickname since it reminded them of the time I'd thrown peanuts at the circus and gotten us kicked out.

"On my way to rehearsal," I said. "You?"

"Leaving practice," he said. "Then shooting hoops with my boys. I'm still planning on attending that theater festival you're performing at. That still on?"

"I hope so," I said. "It got a little complicated. Tasha had to quit, and they replaced her with Samantha."

"Samantha Chance?" Parker sounded confused. "You mean that girl in your grade with no filter? I remember her from last year."

Parker had been one of those seniors last year at Crestview High School who knew everyone. Samantha had the type of notoriety that made everyone at least know of her.

"Remember when she fought with the principal in the cafeteria last year?" Parker asked.

"Vividly," I said.

Samantha had argued with the principal about the quality of vegetarian options at the school in the middle of lunch. Her voice echoed in the cafeteria, and everyone had heard the conversation. Then later, she organized a protest outside the school until the administration caved.

"So, is she a good actor?" Parker asked.

I sighed. "She's not horrible. Tasha was better, but Samantha was good enough. We've had to relearn a bunch of scenes because of it."

Parker paused. "Jack Garrison still giving you a hard time?"

"He's..." I didn't want to lie to my brother, but I also didn't want to get into another argument with him about Jack.

"Don't lie, Shayna," Parker said. "I know you don't like him. When I was in high school, everybody thought he was kind."

Parker had been friends with Jack since he mentored Jack's flag football team in elementary school. He never held my beef with Jack against him, and as far as I knew, they still texted occasionally.

"I can hate Jack," I said. "And I will forever."

Parker chuckled. "Are you sure you don't like him?"

I almost missed the red light. Slamming my foot on the break, I swore. That was the moment Parker realized I had called him while driving.

"Please tell me you didn't crash, Peanut," he said.

"No," I scowled. "Just a sudden red light. And no, I don't like Jack. That's what he wants."

"Dad called me last week," Parker said. "I don't think I told you that."

This time, someone behind me honked, and I realized the light had turned green. I hit the accelerator and kept driving down the street, turning on the road that led to the theater.

"Did you answer?" I asked.

Our relationship with our father was strained, to say the least. When I was ten, and Parker was twelve, our father cheated on our mother and got his mistress pregnant. Then he'd decided that the way to fix his mistake was to start a new family, leaving us high and dry.

"I called him back," Parker said. "Something could have been wrong. Turns out he wanted to tell me that Georgia broke her leg in gymnastics."

Making a sharp turn into the theater lot, I found a spot to stop. Putting the car in park, I sighed and tried to process the news. Georgia was our half-sister. I hadn't seen her since last Easter. She would be about seven now.

I didn't hate Georgia. I didn't even hate Lizzie, the college intern with whom my father had cheated on my mom. Instead, I'd pointed all my anger at my father.

It was his fault. He'd run away with Lizzie and started a new family. Parker and I had two other half-siblings, Hayden and Luna.

"Why did you call him back?" I growled.

Parker sighed. I had the feeling that he was running his hand through his hair. "Shayna, I know he totally abandoned us, but he's getting his life together, and I could tell he felt guilty this time. You should call him."

"I'm not ready to forgive him," I said. "He abandoned us."

"And I get that," Parker said. "But I'm tired of trying to avoid him. He's trying to make up for his mistakes."

"I don't want to talk about Dad," I said. "Mom and I are doing a movie night tonight."

"Pop some corn for me," Parker said. "And have fun in rehearsal."

He hung up, leaving me in silence.

I took the keys out of the ignition. I loved Parker, but sometimes he just didn't understand me. Jack had wronged me, and he was so willing just to brush it off so flippantly. Parker was blind to the real pain that Jack had caused in my life, and he was ready to forgive our father for leaving us and starting over.

Walking into the theater, I set out to find Anton to get instructions. The building was a community center that had fallen in disrepair. The seats were old, and the stage sagged a little, but it was a place we could practice.

Since it was theater tech day, I found Kai was playing with the various colors and schemes in the light booth. Beside him stood a short blonde girl. I recognized her at once as Jack's younger sister, Lilly Garrison.

She was a freshman, and she was on the volleyball team. She had a sweetheart-shaped face and bright blue eyes. Her blonde curls fell gracefully around her face. Her arm was in a cast, which I thought was strange, but her smile was gentle.

Kai seemed to be showing her the ropes of the light board. I didn't know how she'd be able to make that work with one arm, but I supposed it would be fine.

Rita and Jules were working on a forest backdrop on the stage. They had several buckets of various shades of green paint and listened to some Broadway songs on a Bluetooth speaker as they worked.

Juan sat to the left of Rita on the stage, working on a paper-mâché tree. He waved, sending the newspaper strips stuck to his fingers flying.

The lights all of a sudden came up super bright. I blinked back spots.

"Too much," Rita shouted.

"Sorry, Rita," Kai shouted back, and the lights lowered slightly. " And this is how you turn down the lights."

"That's easy," Lilly said.

She was nauseatingly cute. Kai seemed to be buying the good girl act as well. I hated when girls were so willing to be cute pleasers.

I rolled my eyes. "So that's Jack's sister."

"She's walking around like she owns the place," Juan scoffed.

I looked at my boyfriend. "Lilly isn't like her brother."

Juan crossed his arms. "She's exactly like her brother."

I knew Juan pretty well. He tended to pass judgment on everyone. I didn't see a reason to hate Lilly. I'd only seen her around.

"You don't even know her," I said.

"The Garrisons are all the same," Juan crossed his arms. Then his expression softened. "So, about that idea I had..."

"I already told you I have to cheer at the football game Friday," I said, a little frustrated he'd changed the subject to the big house party he was planning. "We haven't even had lunch together this week because you keep having to go to tutorials."

Juan had skipped out on me at lunch to attend history tutorials for two weeks. He claimed his mother would be very upset if he bombed another history test.

Juan looked guilty. "I'm sorry about that, babe. You know I was thinking after. Come on, don't you want to catch a movie? We could catch a late movie at the café my sister owns and hang out..."

I'd promised my mother another movie night too. Juan fell asleep during movies unless they had a lot of zombies. I wasn't a fan of the undead.

Samantha walked by with a bucket and a stack of newspapers as my thoughts trailed to the last zombie movie we'd watched, where Juan cheered like he was at a sporting event, and I grimaced every time fake blood squirted across the screen.

"The movies?" I pursed my lips. "I don't know..."

"The movies?" Samantha blurted. "I love the movies. What about Roman Holiday for a movie night?"

"You can come if you want, Sam," Juan said.

"It's a date!" Samantha grinned, and I noticed a bit of her pink lip gloss was smeared on her chin.

Samantha hummed as she gave Juan the newspapers and the bucket to Jules. Then she skipped past Novah, painting a column, and over to the lighting booth in stupid sparkly red Wizard of Oz heels. I assumed she'd pilfered them from somewhere backstage.

"This is one of the lights we're going to use," I heard Kai say as Samantha entered the booth. "Try the green one."

"Okay," Lilly replied, and the stage was bathed in soft green light.

Looking over at my boyfriend, I noticed he was staring at the entrance to the lighting booth where Samantha had just entered. He seemed almost smitten somehow by the flamboyant girl.

I glared at him. "Really? Samantha?"

"Come on, baby," Juan looked at me with big eyes. "You know I hate leaving people out."

"We might as well ask Jack to come too," I said sarcastically.

Juan reached out to take my hand. "If that's what you want..."

"That was sarcastic," I pulled away from him ever so slightly.

Kai said something to Lilly, and the stage lights changed from green to purple. She seemed to be getting the hang of everything just fine.

"What, you don't want to double date?" Juan asked.

I couldn't imagine Samantha on a date. I didn't even like it when she was around. She was loud and obnoxious. She always said exactly what was on her mind, no matter how cynical or rude.

Everyone at Crestview had been insulted by Samantha at one point or another. No one really wanted to be her friend. She just kind of showed up in places you didn't expect her to, talked everyone's ears off, and then disappeared.

"Jack would never ask Samantha out," I said. "Not in a million years."

"What?" Juan said. "She's kind of cute."

My jaw dropped. "Juan!"

"Just saying," Juan said. "Do you know where he got that black eye?"

I didn't know anything about a black eye. I could only assume he meant Jack. I was still upset that Juan would insinuate that I wanted to double date with Samantha and Jack.

"Forget it," I sighed, trying to refocus and get away from this insane conversation. "Have you seen Ant..."

I was so distracted I was nearly run over by Carson barreling into the theater, diving to catch a half-deflated football.