I wonder if I've gone overboard as I gaze outside the bedroom window at a twinkle of light blossoming in a blanket of darkness. I admit I haven't slept a single second on the King-sized mattress pressed against the wall. Tossing and turning all night isn't fun, especially when I kept replaying Brandon's rejection. The knots in my stomach allowed a wave of anxiety to creep over my body in constant tremors. For the past seven hours, he wouldn't stop taunting me. His voice was on repeat and the embarrassment was constant.

I will always like you as a friend.

I can't face him not after our kiss was undone as soon as it started. Then there are the endless reruns, and the more I watch them, the more I uncover little hidden moments where his cerulean blue eyes tell me everything. It wasn't only that I was the girl with a few patches of nappy hair still clinging to her head. After I kissed Brandon, he stared into my dark brown irises, and I saw things the way they really were.

I'm a junior who takes Learning Strategies, a classroom filled with the slowest readers but fastest runners. When school lets out it's like a race with Usain Bolt to blend in with the nearest crowd of teenagers and pretend we rushed from a different direction. Brandon is not only the smartest and sexiest boy in Ravenwood, but he has perfect test scores and only takes advancement placement classes.

And don't forget the million-dollar mansion his parents own that's always riding fate's main side piece, fortune. I'm not the first to state this, but those two are definitely playing favorites. I swear it!

Ugh, I wish I could knee myself in the face right now; it's physically impossible to stop listing all the ways Brandon is perfect. Okay, deep breaths.

I inhale an image of his radiant smile and exhale the sadness aching in my heart as he takes a step back, putting more distance between us. The spell Brandon has over my heart has to end, and I know all the ingredients to break this curse.

Just paint my skin green and call me Wicked because from now on, it will be easier for Roxane to ace a quiz than for Brandon to see my shadow. I have nine months until he ships off to the Army. My disappearing act will be as easy as a guy getting the Atomic Five to make a V with their legs. Brandon Lockwood has no idea he's up against a sly, stone-cold Ninja. He won't even see my shadow because I decided to wake up an hour early every morning to get ready for school and walk to the nearest bus stop.

"I got everything figured out," I say, opening the door to the bathroom for the first time.

"What do you have figured out?" Brandon asks, flossing his teeth as I glance inside the bright room adjacent to mine.

My eyelids expand to the ceiling while my mouth drops to the floor in horror as my attention zeroes in on his well-defined, glistening six-pack. "Shirtless."

I slam the door shut, stretching my arms across the wall, sliding on the ground in astonishment. "Oh, my goshh! Are you serious? How is this far?"

Brandon knocks on the door, calling my name multiple times. As I open the walk-in closet, Evelyn gives me full access to everything until I can afford my own. I whistle at the massive load of clothes stacked a mile high on the shelves, and the other two aisles have items hanging from hundreds of racks. I grab the closest outfit I can reach as he twists the doorknob open like any oblivious boy with a death wish. My head rubbernecks to the left and right side of the dark hall.

I randomly choose the staircase on the left side of my bedroom, and before he can say anything else, I bolt to the first floor. Brandon leans over the balcony, searching in the still darkness while I do the running man glued to the wall pose underneath the balcony.

"Ebony, I won't keep chasing you around," Brandon complains, "look, I promised Jessica I would take you and Alexis shopping for school supplies today."

I open my mouth and instantly close it because I still regret everything that happened to us. It feels like yesterday was a meaningless BLEEP in my past, and it wouldn't hurt so much if I didn't enjoy every minute I spent with Brandon. But here I am, frozen in fear, attached to the wall like an ornament.

The kick is I'm mentally paralyzed; a thought outside of one-word sentences doesn't exist, and I refuse to apologize to Alexis. I'm standing at a crossroads, and at this moment, I don't have an answer for how to return from oblivion.

"Don't go to school," Brandon roars, heaving a sigh as his footsteps echo upstairs until the door slams.

I return to the path I initially started, battling a tingle of regret flickering inside my chest. The layout of this house is still confusing, but after a few minutes, I lock myself inside the main bathroom. The white minimalist design matches the entire house with the woven shower curtain, and the freestanding bathtub.

After admiring Evelyn's simple decor, I place the folded clothes on the mounted self hanging over the toilet. Then I throw my sweaty clothes on the floor and give a few seconds for the water coming out of the shower to heat to the perfect temperature. When it finally reaches warm, plus a dash of scolding hot, I teeter inside the bathtub, fully submerging all my worries into the water.

My hand grasps around a bottle of unlabeled shampoo, matching the color scheme of the beach house. After I wash myself it feels like twenty minutes has passed before I finally step outside the shower. At least ten more minutes have passed as a pair of scissors, a trash can full of curls, and a stranger stands in the mirror.

Who is this girl wearing a black sequin

blouse tucked inside a pair of high-waist

black leather pants?

Who is this black girl with defined,

hydrated curls that used mysterious

shampoo used by white people?

It's the clothes for me, though!

No, it has to be the hair! It's like

Kevin Heart wearing Shaq's pants,

it shouldn't make sense.

Well, if my internal monologue has taught me anything in the past five minutes of ogling myself in the mirror, it's that I can't leave the house dressed as a designer baby. People are going to think the Atomic Five inspired me. No, it's worse; they're going to think I joined the dark side and the biggest cult in California. I don't want Alexis to slap me around and demand I make babies with the closest football player.

Well, that was uncalled for.

The outfit is already changing my carefree and kind personality. I can sense myself turning into an untamed lion obsessed with giving snark comments about topics I have the faintest idea about. I can't wear designer; it has a mind more conceited than Alexis and more clueless than Roxane.

Damnit, I can't stay at not-my-house either because I'll have to grovel on Lexie's weird, finger toes. Then, when I'm done getting a technic shot in the face, I have to get lectured by Brandon about how it's important to respect someone's personal space. I glance at my new haircut. It's only a few inches shorter than I expected, but it doesn't feel like me. It's like I'm separated from the girl in the mirror; maybe we always were.

Before I open the bathroom door and walk outside I glance at the mirror. "I guess it's just me against the world."

I take a deep breath, focusing on the floor as I walk to the front door. Days ago, I used to dream about laying my head on Brandon's chest while I slowly fell asleep. I wanted it to be so real I tried to capture it with an old paintbrush and a blank canvas.

I thought if I saw it, maybe some part of me would believe it was real. Hours passed as I stood over my bed, holding the same wooden paintbrush with the bristles curving in every direction. The last of the red acrylic paint dried up on the oval palette before I realized I didn't have any of the material to paint a different reality. I never had any of the supplies.

The pristine lawn shimmers in the sunlight as I walk down a cobblestone path leading to the main road. I admire a cluster of ferns sprouting at the end of the Lockwood mansion and the pine trees standing at both sides of their property. From the road, the house seems so quiet and beautiful, like it's too peaceful for anyone to afford to live out their dreams in any square inch.

What would it be like? I wonder if my parents always lived here. Maybe my mom wouldn't have died if we had financial freedom. Rose was a vintage woman down to her clothes, and she rocked everything she wore. So when she wanted to upgrade her looks to fit into the art scene, I knew if she wasn't already a masterpiece, then I never would be.

The feeling of hopelessness washes inside my gut as I walk away from Brandon's house with a million regrets. I open Google Maps, and the rejection replays in my mind for the entire thirty minutes until I'm standing at the school gate. I have so many reasons not to enter this hellhole, but number one is the golden boy with a ton of destructive tendencies isn't here to protect me.

"No matter what anyone says," I trail off, thinking of anything to be cheerful about. "they already call me retard. What else can the den of lions do to me?"

I gaze at the pavement as I try to blend in with the horde of teenagers rushing inside Ravenwood High School. My feet scatter towards the door leading to the school's cafeteria.

Before five minutes pass, I'm holding a paper tray of Cinnamon French Toast Sticks with two small containers of maple syrup tucked on the side. I find a lovely, quiet round table to bury myself in as I chow down on food that isn't sugar-free. A gasp escapes my mouth as I relish every single flavorful bite.

Sugar-free is the abominable stuff of nightmares, and right now, my tongue is cursing Jesse for making us eat that bland garbage. Sure, forcing the other weaklings to turn into a pile of bones is alright, but I have standards. If it doesn't have a massive surplus of sugar in it, then I don't want to be in the same house as it.

"Slow down motormouth," Alexis frowns under a head scarf and black shades. " it's not going anywhere. Have some self control and stop eating like a sumo wrestler."

"What are you even doing here?" I question, ogling her strange outfit. She's wearing an oversized white tank top paired with a pair of blue jeans that's tapered with a safety pin. Her hair is pulled underneath a scarf, and she's wearing Jesse's black designer shades.

"Well, I'm not the one that snuck out like a drama queen and stomped all the way to Ravenwood before the crack of dawn's ass just to prove a point." Lexie seethes, periodically glancing around the cafeteria.

"Are you implying I'm the drama queen?" I ask incredulously, "Alexis, you're the same girl that refused to eat her dinner because it wasn't extravagant enough like the picture on the menu presented it."

"Lower your voice, you spoiled brat," Alexis whispers, wrapping the scarf tightly around her face.

I glare at my empty tray, brushing my hair to my back as I act out the most arrogant human being on earth. "And I refuse to eat lies, so Pablo. I don't care if your name isn't Elmo. Toby, I demand you go back into the kitchen and fix this. And don't come out until it looks like it's worth my money. You're dismissed, Leon."

Lexie does a series of fake silent gasps, placing her hand over her cold, callous heart. "I shouldn't even be here but your friend dragged me out of my mansion at seven o'clock in the morning on the one day I get an outside pass. All to find the likes of you."

Holding the tears back, I rise from the table as Alexis follows me outside the lunchroom. "Tell Brandon I said thanks for everything, but he's helped me enough. I live my life on my terms like I always have. I don't need anybody to like me or to love me not even you."

Alexis does the unthinkable and pulls me into a tight embrace, whispering in my left ear. "I won't promise not to be a bitch to you tomorrow, Killer Barbie. "

"I wouldn't expect anything else," I hug Alexis, crying on her shoulder, "ugly stepsister."

For once in years, Alexis and I laugh together. Sure, it's one of those soft chuckles that drags on when a girl thinks she's too cute to laugh out loud. Who would've expected it to snow in hell today of all days? Tracy can eat his heart out because it happened; Queen Lexie and I are being nice to each other.

It's like a Freaky Friday episode took over our lives and taught us how to be decent, loving people, and who am I kidding? Tomorrow, it'll be the last girl and hairy man fighting in the Mansion Bathroom Wars. But today, it's nice having a sister that doesn't hate me.

I try to roll my eyes to the back of my skull. "And you're stealing my cell phone, real classy, Alexis."

AUTHORS NOTE

This wasn't my favorite chapter, but let me know if you're starting to fall in love with any of my characters. I hope it's Ebony 🤭 If you've enjoying this book then please take the time to vote and comment. A little support motivates me to come back to finish another chapter.

I'm currently working on a few projects simultaneously, but knowing anyone likes Ebony's story will definitely bring me back. Have a great day and don't forget to vote and comment! Happy New Year 🎊 🎉 🎈!