school functions because he was so good-looking. It was a little creepy when they referred to her dad as a hunk or a hottie, but Hannah kind of liked it, too. They acted as if her dad were a movie star or royalty or something. Suddenly, he was in the hospital, possibly crippled for life. Though her family was in a shambles, at least her friends would rally around her and she could take comfort in that.
But she was wrong. The news coverage didn’t pull any punches.
All at once, she, her friends, and the entire world knew about her father’s extramarital affairs. Yes, affairs, plural. There had been other women besides Eden’s mother, a lot of others. He went from being her cool dad to being this total sleaze-bucket, a national joke. Hannah felt like everyone was laughing at her, too. She knew she wasn’t supposed to care what other people thought of her, but it still mattered.
Hannah had had a crush on this jock, Ian Westerlund. He was tall and ruggedly good-looking with dark blond curly hair. His family had moved to Seattle from Australia a few years before. Hannah became frazzled and breathless if Ian even so much as looked at her. A while back she’d mentioned to Taylor D’Arcy that she thought Ian was cute.
On her first day back at school after the thing that happened, just before third period English Lit class, Ian approached her desk. He made eye contact and said, “Hey . . .”
“Hey,” Hannah managed to reply.
Here it is, she thought. In his sexy Australian accent, Ian was about to tell her that he saw her on the Internet—and how sorry he was about what had happened to her family. Hannah’s heart pounded furiously.
“Hey,” he said again. “Listen—”
“Hannah’s got the hots for you, Ian,” Taylor interrupted—for the whole class to hear. She sat behind Hannah. “But I don’t know if you should go out with her, because her dad has really screwed around a lot. For all you know, he could have screwed your mom. You and Hannah could be brother and sister . . .”
It was a stupid, mean, tactless thing to say, but since Taylor D’Arcy had said it, everyone laughed. Even Ian chuckled awkwardly.
But all Hannah could do was look down at the floor and try to keep from cringing.
Before the end of the school day, everyone was quoting Taylor.
In the corridor, after sixth period, some stupid-ass senior Hannah barely knew came up to her. “Hey, aren’t you Hannah O’Rourke?” he said. “I hear your father can’t keep his dick in his pants. So—do you party around a lot, too?”
Hannah hoped it would all go away and everyone would forget soon. But it was in the news for days. Plus, after a brief absence, her bastard half-sister, Eden, was back at school—a walking, talking, breathing reminder that Hannah’s father was a womanizing scumbag.
Even though she was older, Eden had started out at the high school a year behind Hannah—in her brother Steve’s grade. It didn’t seem to bother Steve much. But then Eden was quickly moved up to Hannah’s grade, and Hannah was utterly humiliated.
Eden had cleaned herself up a bit and lost the Goth look she’d featured when she’d originally shown up at their house. She could actually be pretty with a little effort. But she still had the dark eyebrows and platinum hair (à la Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones). She also had horrible taste in clothes, and looked just plain trashy half the time. It might have helped if she’d worn a bra more often. She had big boobs, too, so it was hard not to notice.
Even if she weren’t the “braless wonder,” Eden still would have stuck out. In class, she questioned and debated their teachers at every turn. She seemed openly hostile to the people Hannah thought mattered. Even though they’d been pretty awful to her, Hannah still cared what they thought. She remembered Ian Westerlund saying something really funny in their world history class, and once the laughter had died down, Eden could be heard muttering to no one in particular: “What a fucking idiot.”
Eden seemed determined to befriend the class losers and misfits. While that might have seemed noble or kind, it was also pretty stupid. Sure, kids sometimes were pegged as losers for no discernible reason. But most of the time, they didn’t fit in because they were just damned impossible to get along with. And yet Eden sought them out.
“She’s kind of contrary, isn’t she?” Hannah’s mother had once said, describing Eden. “She seems bent on being different from everyone else.”
For some reason, Hannah hadn’t expected Eden to pull her vanishing act on their very first day away from home together. Hannah kept telling herself, I’m not responsible for her. Hell, her half-sister was lucky she didn’t just leave her stupid bags here on the train.
Hannah worked up another smile for her Good Samaritan businessman. “Is Delmar your stop, too?” she asked.
“No, but you looked kind of overwhelmed, so I thought I’d help.” He nodded at the suitcases crammed in the aisle. “I can hand these down to you once you’re on the train platform. Are you at the college?”
She sighed. “I’m starting my freshman year. And not a very good start, I guess . . .”
He smiled again. There was nothing flirtatious about it. In fact, it was almost fatherly, like he felt sorry for her.
As much as her half-sister could be a pain in the ass, Hannah hated the notion of getting off the train without her—alone in this strange town. She told herself she wasn’t going to cry—not in front of this nice man. Never mind how Riley had just burst her bubble with the news that he wasn’t seeing her this weekend. And forget that she was so homesick her stomach ached.
She glanced down at all the bags again and wondered how she was going to manage lugging them around all by herself.
The rest of their stuff had been shipped off to Our Lady of the Cove last week.
Except for a virtual tour online, neither Hannah nor Eden had visited the college. Of course, she’d read up on the place. It was a small Catholic university with about four thousand students. It had been a women’s college, but now about twenty percent of the students were male. The school had a good reputation, but neither Hannah nor Eden would have chosen it for themselves.
For a while, it had seemed they might need to put their college plans on hold. Their father’s hospital and physical therapy bills had put a huge burden on the family finances. The insurance covered only so much. Eden was due to inherit a large sum from the woman who had raised her, but she wouldn’t see a dime of it until she turned twenty.
At just about the time Hannah should have been applying herself academically and planning for college, total apathy had set in. She’d hated her family and hated the kids at school. She’d spent most of her time watching TV and on social media. She might not have had many friends at school, but thanks to all those headlines, she had more social media followers than all her classmates put together. Studying was the last thing on her mind. So her grades were hardly scholarship-worthy. By the time Hannah realized she’d blown her chances of getting away from her miserable existence and into a decent college, it was too late.
But then, out of the blue, both she and Eden received scholarship offers from a Chicago-based financial firm, the Slate-Gannon Group. Both the girls’ tuition and their room and board were covered. Apparently, the firm had a connection to the university, and every year, they selected a few financially challenged students for their scholarship program. Though the O’Rourkes weren’t exactly destitute, no one questioned
