Page 14 of Raven

My phone on the bar table lights up. Even in a club, I have to be always aware. It might be my annoying bodyguard. Worse, it could be my father, ordering me to go home if Kolya ratted me out. Bribing my guard doesn’t always work.

“One second,” I say and step aside to text Kolya, telling him I’m spending the night at Maddy’s. Sucks for him, because he’ll have to stake out the house, and so will the second-shift, Armén, in the morning. Not that I give a shit. Maddy’s house is pretty much the only one I’m allowed to stay at, and her parents are used to a black SUV parked outside their door.

When I return to the table, Maddy is already up, and Patrick is wobbling to his feet. “Sorry, gotta bounce. But, hey…”

His eyes lock with mine. “Friday at noon. Staton Airfield. Text me. You have my phone number. You are both invited.” He winks at me, then Maddy, and in a minute, he’s gone.

“Party’s over,” I say disheartened. “Can we just go to your place and get drunk on good tequila?”

She wraps her arms around my neck and drunkenly tilts her head onto my shoulder. “Babe, you don’t have to ask.”

This is my life: asking permission, reporting where I’ve been, being followed by my bodyguard, who sits outside Maddy’s house all night and checks rooms at parties to make sure I behave.

He takes us to Maddy’s, and I don’t bother saying goodbye when we stalk on high heels to her house.

I like these nights. Drunk, happy, her house smelling of life, family, and the future. We sit on her balcony on the second floor and chat and share a joint before we go to bed.

When I get up in the morning, I brush my teeth and stare at the smudged makeup and my blonde bed hair when Maddy walks into the bathroom.

“Shiiiit, the hangover,” she rasps as we stare at each other in the mirror. She sets her chin on my shoulder and plays with my hair. “You know, if you had dark hair, we could pass as twins.”

“That wouldn’t change much for me in the next three months.”

“You might have a hell of a time messing with your bodyguards and your dad.”

“Tsk, Mads, like you want any shit from my dad.”

That traitorous lump in my throat comes back, a frequent visitor. I’ve been crying a lot lately, usually when I’m drunk and feeling sorry for myself. Diamond tears, Maddy calls them, because you can have all the money in the world, but a cage is still a cage.

“Fuck it,” I say, determined, staring at my dyed blonde hair in the mirror.

Maddy lifts her pretty eyes in confusion.

I love her. I wish I were her. I’ve spent the last several years of my life wishing to be someone else.

“What is it, babes?” she asks dreamily.

“Where’s that chestnut hair dye you use?”

Her eyes widen in shock. “Oh. My. Gawd. Yes! Let’s shock Papa Tsariuk!”

It’s amazing how one hour can change who you are, at least on the surface. Because when Maddy washes my hair, then blow dries and straightens it, all the while not allowing me to look in the mirror, I feel the familiar bitterness tingling in my veins—anything to aggravate my father. He likes me blonde, with tons of makeup, dressed in the best designer clothes. He likes me perfect, so he can boast about me.

Take that, papúlia, I say to myself bitterly when Maddy finally nudges me to look in the mirror.

My jaw drops.

“Mils,” she whispers. “It’s…”

It’s incredible. Despite my straight bangs, Maddy and I look like sisters.

She runs out into the bedroom and comes back to snap a selfie of us in the mirror.

“Fuck, Mads,” I whisper, still mesmerized by the sight in the mirror as she starts laughing hysterically. She stumbles out to the bedroom, and I hear her gasping, but I don’t pay attention, staring at myself in the mirror instead.

Another loud gasp comes.

Oh, shit.

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