We Are the Goldens

ALSO BY DANA REINHARDT

The Summer I Learned to Fly
The Things a Brother Knows
How to Build a House
Harmless
A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2014 by Dana Reinhardt
Jacket photograph © 2014 by Shutterstock

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reinhardt, Dana.
We are the Goldens / Dana Reinhardt. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “Since their parents’ divorce when they were young, Nell and her sister Layla have been each other’s stability and support. When Layla starts to pull away, Nell discovers a secret: Layla is involved with one of their teachers. Nell struggles with what to do”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-385-74257-3 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-99065-6 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-385-74258-0 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-307-97581-2 (ebook) [1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Divorce—Fiction. 3. Teacher-student relationships—Fiction. 4. Sexual abuse—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R2758We 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013023351

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For Chelsea Hadley, who is like, and indeed by marriage is, a sister to me

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About the Author

THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED
to tell you.

Don’t be mad.

Please. Please don’t be mad. I hate it when you’re mad at me.

Have you ever woken in the middle of the night, and for just a second you don’t know where you are, or the shape of the room, or if you even belong in this world? Yes. I know you have because we used to share a bedroom, and I’ve heard the sharp intake of your breath. The scrambling through tangled sheets. The blind searching until you realize you’re home, in your own bed, and that you’re you.

Well, that’s the sort of feeling I get when you’re mad at me, but it lasts for much longer than a breath and a scramble through sheets; it lasts until I know you’re not mad anymore. When things are right between us, that’s when I feel like me.

It’s always been this way; we know the family joke. When I first learned to talk I called myself Nellayla.

Nellayla
.

You were so much a part of me I thought we shared a name until you told me: “I am Layla,” and you tapped your chest, then reached out to touch mine. “You are Nell.”

I’m sure this rattled my tiny universe. Swept the ground right out from beneath my chubby, uncertain legs. I know this because it’s how I feel now when you have to spell out the ways we’re not the same.

What divides us is clear to the world around us but has always been murky to me.

Nellayla
. The family joke. One of the only things the four of us can still laugh about together.

But is it funny?

Or do I laugh because that’s what you taught me to do?

I COUNTED ON THIS BEING
the best year of my life. I say this even though I know it’s foolish to count on anything, that all sorts of stuff happens we never see coming.

I never imagined Mom and Dad would divorce when I was five. Or that we’d give up dolls, or that you’d want to sleep in your own room, or that I’d have bigger boobs than you. I never imagined that boys as beautiful and perfect as Parker and Duncan Creed could die, but they did, and their parents sold their house and we never spent Christmas there again.

Still, even though I knew better, there were things I looked forward to, hoped for. I believed my freshman year at City Day would kick some serious ass.

My last two years at Pine Academy were fine. I’d been there since kindergarten, and of course I had Felix, but I
couldn’t wait to start City Day and be Layla’s little sister again.

You know all those movies where the kids go to their first day of high school? They walk down the hall and people stare at them, or don’t stare, which is sort of worse. Or maybe they wear the wrong clothes, say dumb things, choose the worst place to sit at lunch, and so they become the target of the unspeakably evil cool kids. Etc. Etc. Cliché, cliché.

Yeah, well, those movies always seemed pretty fake to me. The villains and the heroes too simple and obvious when there’s probably a little of both in every one of us. And also: none of the kids in those movies had an older sister like you.

Mom dropped us off that morning. Remember? You wanted to drive. Mom said that even if she didn’t need her car to get to work, and even if she was crazy enough to lend it to someone whose license was still wet with ink, where on earth would you park it?

That’s Mom.
The Fun Killer
.

If we’d been with Dad the night before that first day, he’d probably have given us the keys to his convertible, and donuts for breakfast.

That’s Dad.
The Fungineer
.

Heroes and villains. It’s not that simple.

Felix was waiting out front on the sidewalk. I knew it was Felix, even though he wore a flat-brim baseball cap, the kind he mocked. I’d know Felix if I woke in the middle of the night not sure where or who I was.

“Hello, lovely ladies.” He tipped his ridiculous hat.

You gave him a quick hug and he blushed. You did this because you know that beneath his cool exterior he burns for you with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns, to quote some Shakespeare.

This should bother me, but come on. How could Felix not harbor a passion for you? You’re Layla. Beautiful and brilliant and kind and funny with a good head on your shoulders.

That’s what everyone always says:
Layla has a good head on her shoulders
.

Mom and Dad. Gramma and Gramps. Your first-grade teacher even wrote it on your report card.

I used to think this referred to your actual head and its auburn curls. I’d look in the mirror—why wasn’t
my
head good on
my
shoulders? Hair too stick-straight? Too many freckles?

Of course, I now know having a good head on your shoulders means that someone is careful, cautious, makes good decisions, and knows right from wrong. Once, this was true of you.

I knew City Day. You’d been there for two years, and sometimes I got to join you at school. The community potluck. The musical your freshman year, when you worked on the lighting crew. The student art open house in the spring, where I ate cold Brie on stale crackers while you showed us your self-portrait in charcoal. A face I knew better than my own stared back with sorrowful, faraway eyes. The next
spring you molded your torso in clay. Stunning, but a little too generous in the breast department if you’d asked me, and too skimpy in the waist. It made Dad blush.

I wondered if that was who you wished you were and how you could ever want to be anything other than who you are. I look back and I can see how much you put into your art, how hard you tried, how deeply you felt, and now I know why.

But I didn’t see it then.

Maybe you didn’t either.

And of course, there was soccer. I only missed your games if I had to play with my team. Standing on the sidelines and shouting “Go, Lightning!” and wearing my purple and gray City Day beanie made me feel part of the school. I could see a flickering image of a future me, the only freshman on the varsity team, warming up the bench.

Hey. This was
my
fantasy, so why wasn’t I sprinting downfield to score the winning goal with a perfect high-to-the-right-corner left-footed kick? Because I’m a realist. I try not to waste my time imagining impossible things.

But I did dream of making the team, and that didn’t feel so out of reach because I’ve always been a damn good player—the leading scorer on the eighth-grade team, co-captain, MVP—and you’ve been talking me up to the coach since you made varsity your sophomore year. Coach Jarvis loves you. So why wouldn’t she want another—younger—version of you on the team?

That first day you left me in the hallway to head upstairs to your first class—US History, I’d already memorized your schedule—and said, “Don’t forget about tryouts today.”

I laughed. Forget?

“So that’s who you’ve decided to be,” Felix said to me as he watched you walk away. “The jock? The sporty type? Didn’t you get the memo that this is a hipster-urban high school? We’re supposed to go gender-bendy and write ironic poetry and whatever. We’re not supposed to try out for organized sports.”

“I’m not a jock, per se,” I said, though explaining myself to Felix felt like a waste of precious people-watching minutes. “I’m just good at soccer.”

“First of all, don’t say
per se
. And second, I’m good at math. Do you see me signing up for the math club? No. Because I will not be pigeonholed as the math nerd.”

See? Even Felix, one of the smartest people I know, believes those stupid movies about high school.

“You’re unpigeonholeable, Felix,” I said. “Just look at your stupid hat. I’d never have pegged you for a fashion slut.”

We stood in the hallway and compared schedules. We had only one class together. Spanish I. Spanish is my Achilles’ heel and Felix’s native tongue. He declined to point this out when he registered for classes because he’s an evil genius, and he figured why not get one free pass in a school as academically rigorous as City Day? And whoever makes the schedules didn’t question why Felix De La Cruz was in Spanish I, because that sort of assumption is verboten in politically correct City Day.