Against All Odds

Chapter One

So, here’s the thing. I’ve kind of been stalking my stepbrother before I’ve even met him.

I know that makes me sound a little bit crazy, but I’m really not. I swear. And I’m not sorry for doing it. Because from the first second I see Nathan Daley, I know my life will never be the same.

It’s only been seven months since my mother’s death. My dad has started seeing someone new, which I’ve had trouble understanding. I guess I always assumed that when someone’s husband or wife dies it takes years and years to get over what’s happened.

But apparently not for my dad. It’s only taken him a few months.

I notice the changes in him right away. He comes home later, leaves earlier in the morning, sings in the shower. I know I’m supposed to be happy for him but inside I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, waiting for him to realize what a jerk he’s being.

Only he never does.

And although they’ve only been dating for a few months, he decides now’s the time to bring Missy home to meet me. She’s a small woman, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She wears way too much self-tanner and everything about her screams trophy wife.

So, it doesn’t surprise me at all when my dad says she doesn’t have a job. She seems to be used to people taking care of her. My dad loves that about her. And I hate it.

During our first few dinners together Missy begins talking about her son, who’s my age. At first she does it casually, a little comment here and there. Then it turns into constantly. About how Nathan is captain of the soccer team. About how Nathan has received an award from the mayor for outstanding citizenship. About how Nathan already has college coaches coming to watch him play basketball and he’s only a junior.

At first, all this talk about her son is annoying. But then it becomes kind of an obsession for me. I find myself wanting to know more about him. I want to hear about his life, who he really is. So I begin asking Missy about him.

All it usually takes is one question. Something small, seemingly insignificant on my part, and Missy is off on some rant about what he’s doing now, about how perfect his life is.

I can’t figure out how I’ve suddenly become so fascinated with this kid simply from hearing stories about him. But somehow, without my permission, it’s happening. I think it’s because he seems so normal to me. He seems to have this perfect life. Like he’s so put together, when I’m anything but.

I keep telling myself that if I could only get my life together like him I’ll feel okay again.

***

I know my dad wants to marry Missy even before I find the ring in his jacket pocket. I figure he’ll tell me about it first, but apparently he doesn’t feel like he owes me that consideration.

I know it’s coming soon, which means I know I’ll also be meeting Nathan soon.

Only that’s not good enough. I don’t just want to meet him. I want to
know
him. I want to put a face with the stories, a personality with the godlike image his mother makes him out to be.

So, one day I type his name into Google. And literally, hundreds of links pop up.

Pictures, sports articles, Facebook pages, various game schedules. The Internet is like a never-ending source of information. I spend hours researching him, days trying to figure him out. But after a while all that research becomes unsatisfying to me, so I decide to print out a basketball schedule and go to one of his games.

It’s an away game. And since I know his mother is out with my dad tonight I figure it’s the perfect time to go. I won’t be recognized.

Now before you jump to conclusions about how weird and creepy this all is, I need to point out that I’m not obsessed with him in the way you might think. I’m not interested in him in a sexual way at all. It’s more a curiosity about who he is as a person.

A curiosity I can’t seem to drop. I need to see him in person, to study him in person.

So, I get in the car and drive two and a half hours in the pouring rain to watch my soon to be stepbrother play basketball for the very first time. I dress in all black and walk into the gym with my hood up. I want more than anything to blend in and not be seen.

From the second the team steps out onto the court I know which one is him.

Don’t ask me how. I’ve seen pictures of him online, but even if I hadn’t, I’d still know.

He walks with an untouchable confidence, one that tells you he thinks he’s more special than you’ll ever be. His arms are toned and tan, his hair a dark black, and his eyes a deep blue.

From the minute the ref blows the whistle Nathan takes command of the game.

He has more than half the team’s points by the time the final minutes tick away.

From all I had heard I knew he would be a great athlete, but in other ways he’s not what I expected at all. His mother made him sound modest, well rounded. But he obviously knows how special he is. And he makes sure everyone else knows too.

His team, of course, wins the game by like thirty points. And on his way out of the gym and into the locker room he smacks some blonde cheerleader on the ass. I feel my stomach drop.

I had spent days thinking this kid might be able to save me from myself, but now I realize that Nathan isn’t anything like what I thought he’d be. He’s just like every other guy in my school who’s a little too popular for his own good. He isn’t together and well rounded like the picture his mother paints of him. He just thinks he’s better than everyone else in the world. I feel embarrassed and disgusted with myself for believing anything else.

And as everyone piles out of the gym after the game I just continue to sit there in the bleachers feeling sorry for myself. I allow the tears to flow freely down my face, placing my head in my hands and quietly sobbing. After a few minutes of this I’m able to pull myself together enough to get the fuck out of here.

But just as I reach the bottom of the stands I spot Nathan. He’s walking across the gym floor with a shorter kid, laughing loudly about something. And they’re headed directly toward me.

I completely and totally panic. No way in hell can I let him see me. I pull my hood up over my head and sit down, turning my back to them. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and pretend to be texting someone.

“Dude,” I hear a voice say as they get closer, “I’m helping you look for five minutes and them I’m out of here. I can’t believe you lost your phone again. What the fuck man.”

“Nate, chill out,” the shorter guy says walking up the row of bleachers next to me.

“Ashley will still be waiting for you after we find my phone.”

Nathan lets out a cocky laugh. “Oh, trust me, I know. That girl would wait on me forever.”

The shorter kid laughs. “So tonight’s the last night you’re hanging out with her, right?”

Nathan walks across a row of bleachers a few ahead of me and nods. “Fuck yeah.

You know my rule, hit it three times then get the hell out of there. Right before they get all clingy and shit, wanting a fucking relationship.” His friend laughs loudly as I roll my eyes. So classy these guys are.

Just as I’m about to slowly get up and sneak out without attracting any attention, the kid looking for his phone says something to Nathan that stops me in my tracks.

“So have you met the new guy your mom’s seeing yet?”

Nathan shrugs. “He came over for dinner the other night.”

“And?” his friend presses him.

“Fucking tool,” Nathan says smirking. “Just like all the others. But I think she’s serious about this one.”

His friend begins to stomp up and down in the row right next to me. I know it’s a risk staying here, and at any second they could turn their attention to me, but they’re talking about my dad. It’s not like I can just make myself leave in the middle of a conversation like this.

“Eh,” his friend says, “is the daughter at least hot?”

“No clue,” Nathan says kicking an empty soda cup out of his way as he walks.

“Probably not, if she’s anything like her father. Probably some stuck up ice queen with a broom up her ass. You know the type.”

“Well,” his friend says grinning, “even if she’s not a perfect ten, that’s never stopped you from hitting it before.”

“What can I say, girls just flock to me,” Nathan says grinning as he jumps off the bleachers. “You’re on your own now, bro.”

“You better call me later with details,” his friend says loudly as Nathan walks back across the gym toward the door.

“Don’t I always?” Nathan calls over his shoulder.

Then he’s gone.

I can feel the tears start to fill in my eyes again and I decide right now that Nathan Daley is the last person in the world I want to be like. The last person I want as part of my family. And the last person I want in my life.

And at that moment I glance down and see a silver phone sitting on the ground next to me. I shake my head and bend down to pick it up. I hold it out in front of me and try to get the kid’s attention.

“Hey,” I ask, “are you looking for this?”

The kid jumps a little at the sound of my voice. He looks at me like he’s just noticing I’m there for the first time.

“Jesus, you scared me,” he says a little taken aback. “Where did you come from?”

Is he being serious? I’ve only been sitting here since he walked into the gym in the first place. Unbelievable. These guys bring asshole to a whole new level.

I sigh and without thinking take his phone and throw it across the gym floor, where it smashes into a bunch of tiny pieces.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the kid asks as he runs over to where I threw his phone and starts to pick up the pieces. “Are you crazy?”

I shrug. “Yup. And you’re an asshole.”

Then I turn around and stomp out of the gym without saying another word.

When I get home I erase any articles or pictures I bookmarked on my computer about Nathan and rip his basketball schedule into a bunch of tiny little pieces.

I’ve learned my lesson.

Sometimes you have to find out about people the hard way.

***

My mom was my best friend. I literally told her everything.

It started when I was little. I came home from school one afternoon upset because Anthony Mitchell had told the entire class that he wouldn’t kiss me even if I were the last girl left on the planet. Now, when your six and Anthony Mitchell is the most popular boy in your class, this is a pretty big deal.

“Now Victoria,” my mom would tell me as I sat at the kitchen table feeling sorry for myself, “in your life people are going to say things to you that hurt. Things that you wished you had never heard. But that’s how you’ll be able to tell the difference between good people and bad people. The difference between who you want in your life and who you don’t want in your life. The second someone starts to disrespect you is the second you cut them off.”

At six it was hard to understand the lesson she was trying to teach me. But as I’ve gotten older I often come back to this piece of advice when I need help making hard decisions. It’s why I’m so careful about who I let in my life. Why I have so few friends.

And why I’ve never had a serious relationship in my sixteen years of existence.

I don’t need a best friend. I don’t need some boyfriend to make me feel like I matter. My mom taught me from the beginning that the only person my happiness depends on is myself. She was my best friend and all my best memories consist of things having to do with her.

Needless to say, I was devastated when she died.

She was the person I was closest to in the whole entire world. The person who knew everything there was possibly to know about me. And one day, just like that, she was gone. Not on vacation. Not on a business trip. She’s gone forever. And she’s not coming back.

No one teaches you how to get over something like that, how to deal with something like that. But that’s the thing about taking things you think you’ll always have for granted. The second you lose them you feel like your life is over.

It was a Monday night when it happened. It had been snowing all day and they’d let us out of school early. My mom was a social worker and she put all of herself into her work. My dad always said she was the last person in the world who should become a social worker because she couldn’t keep her personal feelings out of her work.

Sometimes my mom would come home late at night and I would hear her crying in her room about something she had seen at work that day.

When I was little I thought it was because she was still new at it, still learning how to deal with the job. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to realize that this is just who my mom was. She had the biggest heart in the world. She loved her work and wasn’t going to stop taking it personally, no matter if she did it for one year or thirty.