“Hey, Emily.”

“She can’t hear you, idiot.”

“She’s faking it, Bri.”

“Shi- Emily is a weird-ass girl, cuh. Deadass with the sweaters in the middle of May, ‘sup with that.”

“It’s who she is, Tyler. Brian, stop going through her phone!”

“Emily doesn’t care, Bri. Hey, look at this. She used to have cool care. Wonder why she cut it.”

“Duh, slim. They had to cut it for surgery or do you no pay attention with your wannabe black-ass.”

“She still looks good with short hair, cut her some slack guys.”

“Yo, how come she spaces our n’shi?

“I don’t know man, why you’re asking me?”

“You guys think what she said is true?”

What’s true?”

“That the drugs in her hometown are way stronger than the ones here.”

“Nah, slim. She trippin’. But what do ya’ll white folks know? Bunch of rich ass, bored ass white kids with no better things to do.”

“Sorry, we call can’t have the rag-to-riches story like you, Ty.”

“Man, fuck you, Brian, with your yee-yee ass haircut.

“Yup, we’re living the life. C’mon, let's go back.”

I act like I can’t hear them, but I do. Most of the time it’s just daydreaming. No, it’s always daydreaming. Whatever goes on in my head is better than what’s happening around me. It’s new to me and I like it. Ever since the accident, it’s been like this. Just me and a better place.

Bri, Tyler, and Brian think they know how it is; Smoking weed, snorting coke, and drinking every Friday and Saturday night. It’s nothing compared to the high day of Darkwood where some asshole would throw something on a Monday and we’ll all be hungover the next day just to do it all over again that night. The death of Elizabeth stopped that for a while and for the better. I know now just how crazy that was.

It’s nice here. I always thought New York would be so fast-paced and that’ll be hard to adjust to. No, I fit in quite nicely. Mom has me in a private school. I expected it to be crazy like the movies. It’s something like that, but my expectations weren’t met. Being the new girl with a dark mysterious past, everyone was eager to be my friend. That held true especially when Mom forcefully made me wear designer clothes so it’ll show that I’m made of money. In the end, the only people I liked enough were Bri, Tyler, and Brian. People who don’t fit in, but aren’t outcasts either. Even here, I manage to get into the same clique as Darkwood. One’s a girl who refuses to wear money even though she has it; Another is a boy who escaped Harlem when his parents landed great jobs. The final is a preppy white kid who by all means not be in this friend group. I’ve been with them for months now and I still can’t decide if I like them or not.

Deep down, I know I still want to go back to Darkwood, back to Cody.

-

“I thought you were coming home an hour ago,” my sister, Jerrica says when I plop my butt on the couch.

“Sorry, I spaced it out.”

“Again? Well, I won’t tell Mom if you help me with dinner, deal?”

I smile. “Deal.”

We live in a brownstone house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Even though we have plenty of room for the three of us, I hardly ever sleep in my room. Jerrica tells me every day that she’s sick of me crying every night but never actually kicks me out. It’s Mom that has a problem with it she always tells me to grow up. I guess sleeping with my sister makes me feel like a little girl again, so that’s why I keep doing it. It’s from a better time when we were never separated.

After the light dinner, I head out to Central Park right as the sun sets. It’s become a hobby of mine and a routine. Sometimes Jerrica joins in, today isn’t one of those days. In the beginning, it was really difficult to walk around; having to always catch my breath. It’s better now, but sometimes I can still feel my ribs ache even though they’re supposed to be completely healed now.

I like to cross Central Park completely to the Upper West so I can at bodegas. I’ve already found my favorite own the nicest Mexican man that I made friends with. His sandwiches are always the best, although there’s one that I like more in Midtown. I only go there in the mornings when I actually have the time. These little stores are literally saving my life. I’m back up to a normal weight now.

Which means I can stop wearing sweaters all the time.

But I still do.

Walking back home back through the park makes me miss Darkwood. I want to go back there so I can hang out with Sara and Grace and even Chris again. I want to see my dad. I want to see Cody. I want to talk to him. All that it does is remind me why I left in the first place. Andrew fucked up my life for the better. It’s better here. I’m better.

Whenever I talk to Gracie, she always catches me up on what’s happening over there. Of course, the best news I ever received was when she called me, crying in joy that Sara was found alive. I’ve never felt such a weight lift off of me when I heard it. I don’t think I ever felt so happy. Then I learned that Sara now started living with Grace and is working on getting better. I talk to Sara nearly every day. At first, there was no life in her eyes. Sometimes she still doesn’t, but she’s smiling more now. She’s laughing again. I can’t imagine what she went through. I still can’t believe she was kidnapped. But I know Sara better than that. I know she tried to kill herself that night, regardless of what she said.

I saw a video Bo posted. The first thing Cody did when Andrew showed up to school beat the ever-living shit out of him. Andrew was just enjoying himself, mocking Cody over and over again for failing me. It just proves to me that Andrew never truly gave a shit about me. I thought he did, but that was a different time. Cody completely lost himself.

Good, I thought.

That’s exactly what I wanted to happen. All I wanted was to take Cody by the throat and make him understand the world as if he were me until he couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t watch the entire video until the end.

Now that so much time has passed, I’m trying to understand what he was going through. He said the dead don’t speak. Elizabeth's suicide affected him much more than he said. It was just supposed to be a fling. He said he avoided me to protect me from who he is; a manipulator. He calls himself Mr. Selfdestruct, but I know him more than that. It’s bullshit how he lies to everyone including himself. I know the truth, even if he doesn’t yet.

It’s why I’ve been slowly talking him down.

I’m cautious.

I’ve told him we’re still not friends, and that he can’t ever be the first to message me. So far it's mostly friendly chat. The other time is just me asking how Grace is doing. They’re good friends now, best friends even. I was so afraid that he would destroy Grace because she likes him so much, but that never happened, did it? Surely he wouldn’t do that to her, never her.

Grace hasn’t ever told me anything about it.

I think that I think too much. That’s what Chris would say. I guess it applies to me now.

“Are you ready?” my sister breaks me out of the trance.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say getting up from my bed. We’re going to a party in the upper east. It’s one of those exclusive parties that only the people in the know can get into and my sister is in the know. Bri is always going which means I’ll only know two people there.

For the first time, I’m wearing a nice dress that shows off my body. Maybe it is time to wear regular clothing now that I'm a healthy weight. I’m also thinking about starting to go to a gym. My flat ass doesn’t service my already flat boobs. I think I’m wearing a slutty dress but it doesn’t compare to my sister’s or Bri’s. I guess I would show my cleavage that much if I had boobs like my sister’s too.

Unlike Darkwood where everything is chaotic and relentless, New York is more social and calm. It reminds me of those bad teen movies on Netflix. It’s not a high school party. It’s private. Everyone here has status and has just come home from their semester. Everyone here is from Columbia, Yale, or Harvard, and every other rich kid college. I’m so outclassed that it takes me a couple of shots to calm down. I manage to blend in well enough. Mom’s rich and Jerrica goes to Columbia herself.

Everything about this screams networking. That’s all it is. It’s about who you know and what you can do. But some things never change. I witness a drug deal happening in front of the entrance of the townhome. The group then runs up to the bathroom to do whatever they bought. In Darkwood, everything happens openly. The people have a lot more to lose.

A group comes up to me to talk to me, seeing that I’m Jerrica’s sister. I can already feel the lustful eyes of one of them. They compliment me and ask me where I’m going to school when I graduate. One tries to convince me to come to Harvard. They don’t know that I don’t even have the grades to even dream about it. That thought makes me giggle and it catches one of the guys by the hook. Ew.

“Yeah, you’re so cool. So original.”

“Uh, thanks,” I laugh nervously.

That's when I see him. My crush in class walks by and we meet each other’s eyes. He stands taller than anyone at this party and taller than anyone I’ve ever seen. I never like the term jaw-dropping, but this is how it feels. I’ve never seen him outside of uniform. This milky brown skin compliments his white shirt so well. Chris talks about how people's energy can sometimes pull him toward the direction of their presence. I never understood, but damn, I think I do now. It’s powerful.

“Emily, there you are,” God his accent is so thick, so powerful.

“Y-you’re looking for me?” Fuck. I stuttered. It’s visible now, isn’t it?

“Your drink is empty, come, I’ll get you another one.” His words intimidate all the boys and they all leave. That’s when I catch his laugh. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just fine. Thanks.”

“Alright,” he says as he tries to walk away.

“Wait!,” I manage to stop him. “Aren’t we getting me a new drink?”

He chuckles. “Right. Come.”

“Thanks, Soran.”

I follow Soran around the party with a drink in hand. He talks to all his friends about things I can’t even comprehend. Stocks and finances and all that jazz. I stand and listen but never contribute. I’m invisible but Soran doesn’t seem to mind. After a while, I excuse myself and rejoin Bri. She talks to some guys but compared to being around Soran, it’s a breeze.

My sister joins us soon after and we split from the guys to get more drinks. Being buzzed or drunk is where I need to be. It makes it a lot easier to not look over where Soran is. It doesn’t work 100#% of the time and Jerrica notices.

“Girl, at least try not to make it so obvious,” She laughs.

“Is it that bad?”

“Like bad, bad,” Bri laughs.

Soran is a year older than me but in the same grade due to something that happened when he immigrated here. We sat next together in one of my classes, that is how we got to know each other. He’s not my friend, just a crush. I’m sure he doesn’t even see me that way anyways. He’s always so calm, so stoic.

It’s nice to have someone to think about other than Cody sometimes. I get to imagine what it would be like to kiss his lips surrounded by his already thick beard. I could stare at his milky brown eyes all day which I think I’ve done by accident when I spaced out one time.

He finds me again towards the end of the night outside, smoking a joint. It drops my heart. Shit, I almost pee myself. Up close, I find he’s a foot taller than me.

“You have some balls smoking that outside,” he says.

“I used to do it all the time back home,” I answer back with an exhale. “Want some?” I like this. I’m back in control of myself again. After all, Soran is just a regular guy. I have to try to remember that.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Oh. Well, do you want a drink?”

“I don’t drink either,” he chuckles and now I feel like a fool. “I hope you don’t turn into the people inside this place.”

“What do you mean?”

Soran sits on the steps leading to the front door. “You and me, we don’t come from their world. You and I know what’s real.”

“You don’t care about fitting in?”

Soran shakes his head. “I just do my own thing. Worrying about being liked, being rich, and using people just to gain power, it’s not me. It’s just now how I was raised.”

“And where’s that?”

“Russia.”

“I thought you were Middle Eastern”

He laughs. It’s intoxicating and I immediately want more. “My father is Russian. My mother’s Persian. I grew up in both Afghanistan and moved to Russia during the war.”

“That explains your last name, Sergeyevich.”

“And you? Who’s Emily Crowe?”

I grin, “don’t you know? A vulture.”

Soran shakes his head. “Not yet at least. Maybe soon if you stop being yourself.”

“You don’t like the person I’m becoming?”

“I like the weirdo always wearing the school’s sweater.”

“Is that you hitting on me?”

There’s a pause. Shit, I fucked up, didn’t I? I got cocky. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m stupid.

“Don’t know yet.”

“Uh, sorry,”

“Are you joining your sister at Columbia when you graduate?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve always been into retro and indie fashion. I think I want to start a company someday.”

For the first time, his eyes move down to my body. It makes me feel insecure. I want to cover up. “You have a good eye. I’m sure you can do it.”

“Thanks,” I giggle.

“I’m serious. You’re not insecure about yourself. That alone will help you accomplish your dreams.

“I am. I’m insecure about a lot of things.”

“Sure, everyone is,” Soran stands up, “but you don’t let it define you.” Soran’s words are powerful. I’m not sure what he says is true. He barely knows me. All he’s doing is trying to appeal to my interest to let my guard down, or he’s being genuine. I don’t know what to believe. What would Cody do?

No. I can’t think like that. Soran isn’t Cody.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks.

“Yeah. I’d like that,” I answer.