Shift

ONE.1

Kayden hoped with all her heart that her cousin would get lost on her way from the arrivals gate to the baggage claim. It wasn't too improbable, she thought. JFK was a large airport filled with shuttles, signs, and tourists. It was definitely feasible for Lexi to get disoriented among the throng of travelers, accidentally board another plane, and head back to Florida. Right?

Kayden's wishful thinking was abruptly cut short by her mother's hand waving in front of her face.

"Ice ear!" her mother said—or at least that's what it looked like she said. Kayden had never particularly been good at reading lips. She plucked an ear bud out of place and the sounds of guitar and drums faded away to a scratchy hum.

"Sorry, Mom," she apologized. "What did you say?"

"I see her!" her mother repeated, waving at an escalator. Kayden followed her gaze and saw that, unfortunately, her mother was not mistaken. Lexi had not gotten lost in the airport; instead, she was riding down the escalator with a bright pink suitcase in tow.

For someone who had just been on a plane for three hours, Lexi looked remarkably refreshed. Her blond hair rested lazily on her tan shoulders, a result of Florida sunlight and good genes. And her smile—revealed once she caught sight of her cousin and aunt—was straight and bright, an orthodontist's finest work of art.

Kayden clung desperately to the few final seconds it took for Lexi to ride down the escalator, weave through the crowd, and walk towards her; they were her last seconds of freedom for what she knew was going to be a long month.

Lexi let go of her pink suitcase and wrapped her arms around Kayden. "Kay!" she crooned. "How are you?"

How have I been? Kayden thought. Her fingers fiddled with the cord of her earbuds. It was a fair question, if not for the terrible answer. Crappy was the response she wanted to give, if she was being honest with herself. Her parents' separation still felt a bit too fresh; her father had only moved out three weeks ago, and his absence made the house feel strangely empty, a hollow shell with the ghost of memories floating around in old family photos and boxes of half-empty pancake mix.

But the fact that Lexi was going to fill in that empty space for an entire month didn't make Kayden feel any better. She could only tolerate her cousin's perfection in small doses, and she had just seen her in December when her family had their annual Florida Christmas trip. Kayden had dutifully suffered through all the conversations where her relatives compared her to her cousin. But by the end of the week, her parents' arguing had very nicely ruined the holiday. Kayden had locked herself in Lexi's spare bedroom, drowning out the world with angsty rock anthems and ignoring everyone, including her cousin, for the rest of the trip.

Kayden could almost feel her mother's gaze, warning her to say something positive. "I've been good," she finally lied.

Lexi seemed to buy the "I'm fine" response because she simply nodded and didn't ask Kayden anything else as they exited the airport. Instead, she turned to Kayden's mother and launched into a riveting account of her life for the past six months: how she had aced her SATs, how she had made a ton of new friends while volunteering at a local homeless shelter, how absolutely lovely the Florida weather had been... Kayden poked her earbuds back into place and took her spot in the back seat of her mom's Honda, thankful that the music could almost drown out the sound of her cousin's voice when on the highest volume setting.

Kayden gazed out the window, watching the blur of trees as they traveled out of Queens, past the brick industrial buildings of Brooklyn, and finally over the bridge into Manhattan. Kayden lived with her mom just outside of New York City, and yet she hardly visited the infamous metrpolis. The city was a little too much for her. Too loud, too dirty, too busy. Car rides were different, though. Everything looked better through the clear pane of a window: buildings looked brighter, cars looked sleeker, and people didn't seem quite so terrible. But she knew that once she left her metal surroundings, the facade would shatter. Blaring car horns and cursing drivers tended to do that.