LITMIR.BIZ

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already got everyone under my thumb.”

      “So?”

      The question hung in the air. Becca didn’t have an answer. Nothing besides, because I hoped it would make me happy.

      “Max, come here.” Mr. Holloway’s voice was low and resonating, and without shouting he managed to be heard startlingly from another room.

      Max stood. “You’re insane, you know that?”

      “Ha!” She crossed her arms in an effort to look stronger than she felt. “That’s not what everyone else will think!”

      He left the room, looking kind of hot all mad like that. A moment later she could just barely hear the muffled conversation he was having with his parents behind a closed door down the hall.

      She tiptoed toward the sound, and tried to hear.

      “What are you doing?”

      Becca jumped, and turned to see the small figure of what must be Max’s little brother. “Shh.”

      “Why?”

      She spoke through gritted teeth. “Can you just hush?”

      She tried to listen again, but all she could hear were the low, resonating tones of firm-sounding adult voices.

      “Are you eavesdropping?”

      “Shh!” She pulled the little boy back into the dining room by his arm.

      “Ouch!” he whined, wrenching his arm away. “Stop it!”

      Panic rose in her chest. “Quiet! You can’t tell them I was listening.”

      “I’m going to!” He started to run from her but she grabbed the back of his shirt.

      “Stop, Nick!” That was his name, right?

      He was pulling away from her. She thought quickly. The next thing either of them knew, she had tipped a delicate-looking vase off a pedestal by the door, and it shattered into a million little pieces on the hardwood floor.

      “Oh, no, Nick!” She elevated her voice. In a few seconds, the other Holloways appeared on the scene.

      Mrs. Holloway gasped and emitted a tiny whimper.

      Mr. Holloway looked to Becca. “What happened?”

      “She did it!” Nick pointed desperately at her, tears welling in his eyes.

      Becca shook her head with a pitying smile at Nick. “No, we had just met and Nick said he wanted to play. The next minute, he had run into the vase.”

      “She pulled on my arm!”

      “I tried to stop him in time, but I just couldn’t!” This time Max was looking directly at her, but she refused to look back. “I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Holloway.”

      She hung her head, fake worry etched in every feature of her face.

      “It’s all right. Nick, go straight to your room and stay there. You’re not having Michael over tomorrow night.”

      “But, Dad—”

      “Your mother bought that vase in Germany when she was a teenager. You’ve been told before to be careful, and you continue to roughhouse. There is no excuse. Upstairs. Now.”

      “I should have kept a better eye.” Becca looked earnestly at Mr. Holloway.

      He put a hand up. “Rebecca, you don’t need to apologize again.”

      “Okay.” She nodded.

      “We’re going outside,” said Max, taking Becca by the waist.

      He led her to the backyard.

      “It’s freezing, what are we doing out here?” She was wearing a skimpy black dress.

      “I’m done with you. And I’d like to have this conversation away from my family. You’ve already treated them to enough of my personal life tonight.”

      “I know. I just don’t know how to keep you, Max!”

      “Did you think blackmailing me was really going to do that?”

      “It’s not! I realize that. It’s just that I feel you slipping away … you’re only with me because you feel guilty.”

      He raised his eyebrows. “I have not been with you for that reason. And I don’t intend to. So just stop.”

      “Then why, Max?” Tears were in her eyes. “Why would you be with me?”

      “I’m not doing this with you.” He paused. “When’s your flight?”

      She stared back at him, her eyes wide and her heart pounding. She’d gone too far. She was going to lose him now. She considered standing here and fighting, but she didn’t want to. Not only would it end in more humiliation, but if they didn’t get back together, she’d be … free. To be with whomever she wanted….

      “I’ll change it to tomorrow morning.”

      He sighed. “I’m sorry, Becca.”

      “No. You’re not.”

      She went inside, stormed up to the guest room, and stayed there for the rest of New Year’s Eve.

      Facebook relationship status: Single. Status update: I’m sorry it had to end. But it did.

      Pfft.

       Five days later, back at Manderley

      “It’s just really difficult right now,” Becca said, hiccupping through tears she was lucky to conjure.

      Dana nodded sympathetically from her bed. “I’m sure it is.”

      “I didn’t want to have to end things with Max. But I just … we were way too serious for our age. You know, like, if we’d met—” she sniffed “—when we’re like twenty-something? Things would be totally different.”

      She looked mournfully down at a Polaroid of the two of them taken right before Christmas. He stood behind her with his arms around her shoulders. She was laughing and looking off to her left. She remembered that she’d been laughing at something Johnny said.

      She looked at Max’s beautiful face and her own. She was not attractive when she smiled for real. She never had thought so.

      Becca did not return it to the bulletin board with all the rest of her pictures. She threw it into the suitcase under her bed with all of the other things she didn’t want to think about.

      “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dana. You’re the only one who really seems to care.”

      “That’s not true, everyone cares.”

      “But not as much as you do.”

      Tonight was the night. She was going to do what she could to start getting Johnny for real.

      She had done her best to look good, which wasn’t as effective as she would have liked. She had ignored Max so far, even though she had felt his gaze on her more than once.

      “Hey, Becks!” Johnny shouted to her from across the boathouse.

      Her heart skipped when she saw him smile at her.

      “What?” She sipped through her straw and looked at him through the crowd of girls surrounding her. They always flocked to her. She loved it.

      “Wanna be my partner?”

      He was standing by the beer pong table she’d thought to throw together on her first night at Manderley, constructed out of wood and cinder blocks.

      She shrugged. “Fine.”

      Becca walked over to Johnny and the table,

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