Kirkland Academy- Interracial Fiction

Kirkland Academy- Chapter 13

"Where do you think you're going?" Erica asked hot on the heels of Marco as he walked out of the ballroom in search of his escape.

"I'm leaving. The dance is over. I played your little game and I am going home," Marco said as he reached the parking lot and went in search of his car.

"Wait just one minute," Erica said as she and Marco reached his car, she blocked him from entering the vehicle.

"What do you want?" Marco asked curtly. He'd noticed Tia avoiding Jack after their run in on the dancefloor, and from what he could tell, the two of them had been successful in ruining the couple's night. Somehow, even though he'd done his part to drive Tia and Jack apart, he felt badly about ruining the night that she'd been excitedly discussing with him at the center for weeks.

"Our plan is working, Marco. There's an after party and I think that Jack is going to be there," Erica explained.

"I don't want to go to another one of your prep school parties," Marco said, thinking back to the bad time he had at the beach party.

"If you feel so badly about what you did to Tia, you should want to come to the party and apologize to her. I'm sure she's going to need a shoulder to cry on when Jack ditches her for good tonight," Erica said, still unmoved as she and Marco stood outside of the car.

"You aren't going to move unless I take you to the party, are you?" Marco asked, finally relinquishing his night to Erica's whims.

"Now you're catching on," She said smiling a crooked smile, "Let's go!"

***

"This place is huge. I could fit my entire house in your garage," Marco said to Erica when the two of them entered her home. Her father's work with the biggest names in entertainment afforded her family a type of luxury and glamour that many could never even dream of obtaining. Marco waited in the foyer, intimidated by the grandness and opulence of Erica's palatial home. He busied himself looking at the photographs that lined the walls of the grand entryway. There were pictures of a man Marco assumed to be Erica's father with various celebrities, dignitaries, and politicians. There were family photos with exotic locales for backdrops. Holiday photos with perfectly decorated evergreens with a sea of packages beneath it only help solidify Marco's opinion that Erica was a spoiled little rich girl with a perfect family life. What bothered him most is how she did not seem to appreciate any of her privileged upbringing.

"It's my father's favorite trophy. This is his perfect show house and his perfect show family. Almost perfect, anyway," Erica said as she slipped out of her shoes and headed up to her bedroom to change.

Marco poured over of the photographs of Erica's family and in the time it took her to return to the foyer in a body-hugging mini dress and a pair of wedge heels. Looking over the photos on the walls, Marco witnessed Erica age from a chubby baby into the beautiful teenage girl with the major attitude he'd spent the night with.

"Ready to go?" Erica asked as she walked over to the photo wall where Marco was standing.

"Is that your brother?" Marco asked, pointing to a photo of a younger Erica holding hands and smiling with a blonde boy who looked just like her.

"Yeah. Ethan. My family's secret shame," she said, rolling her eyes and heading for the front door, "Let's go."

"What do you mean? Why is your brother your family's secret shame?" Marco asked as he drove to the party.

"Ethan's got Muscular Dystrophy. He was fine until he turned five. By twelve, he'd been confined to a wheelchair, and now, he is nineteen and confined to a hospital bed," Erica said, taking all of the emotion from her voice as she spoke of her brother, "my father is so busy with work and my mother is so obsessed with keeping up appearances that she sent him away to a nursing home and told all her friends he's away at college."