Betrayal

Chapter 1

The sun warms my face through the car window. It's a hot day, a perfect one to be going on vacation. There isn't a cloud in the sky and we've made it so far out of New York that we're practically in the middle of nowhere, on a two lane road. No tall buildings, no skyscrapers, no traffic, no hoards of people.

I quickly look to my left at Dominic when he pulls my hand to his mouth and kisses the top of it. He's smiling as he does it, his face lit up, and I smile back.

"Gross."

I laugh at Lola, who's sitting in the back seat, and turn to look at her. She grins.

"You could have rode with mom and dad, you know," Dominic says matter of factly.

"I'd rather watch you two kiss than listen to Wyatt and Ella fight the whole way. You're lucky you don't have younger siblings, Ali."

I nod in agreement. I don't have any siblings, older or younger. But Dominic and Lola, who are only two years apart, have a ten year age difference with their other siblings. Lola has made the remark as a joke that they were both accidents, which her father has scolded her for. The thought of me having younger siblings is troubling because I know I would have had to raise them. My mother didn't do much in the way of raising me.

Dominic has been going on about how much I'll enjoy the house. I've been nervous that his parents won't want me there for the entirety of the summer. That's a long time to stay with people who aren't your family, even if I have known them for years. And I've been dating Dominic for nearly six months now. That isn't long, really, and it's not like we're making plans to spend our lives together. Neither of us have said I love you and I don't feel that way about him.

When I was seventeen and he was twenty, we went on our first date. We've been seeing each other since. But with me finishing my last year of high school in New York, and him being away at college in Pennsylvania, we didn't see each other as much as he would have liked. He's handsome and nice and also my first boyfriend. My best friends brother. His parents are nice, seem to care greatly for him and his siblings, and have a strong, happy marriage. And I think they like me. I know they did when I was simply Lola's friend, they were always polite and kind. Though I didn't see much of their father because he was always working. Being a chief of surgery is apparently a very busy job.

"You're sure they don't mind me coming?"

He rolls his eyes at me and kisses my hand again.

"They don't mind, I promise. They like you, you know that."

"It's true, they do like you," Lola chimes in.

I grunt in response. My own mother doesn't seem to like me, so it's difficult to really believe someone else's parents could. Why would they like me? I don't talk much, I'm quiet, depressed frequently, and I've always felt like there really isn't much to me. I've wondered, or assumed, they believe he could have a better girlfriend than me.

I'm poor, while they're incredibly wealthy. They're well educated, while my mother didn't graduate high school, and I don't even know who my father is. They live in a brownstone near Central Park and I live in a project apartment that I can barely afford. And I can only actually afford it because my grandfather left me a small amount of money after his death. Which I've just about blown through with rent and utilities.

My anxiety makes my breath feel constricted and my stomach ache all at once. I've been accepted into NYU on an art scholarship and if I hadn't, I'd likely be homeless by the end of this summer. I have to start thinking of what kind of job I'm going to get to sustain myself. Dominic has no idea of this, of my financial situation, as I've never let him see my apartment, never meet my mother, or even talked about any of it with him.