Miss Congeniality
formatted by
E.M. Tippetts Book Designs
Highland Creek Series
Enticing Stella
(Coming Soon)
Loving Gwen
(Coming Soon)
The Misses Trilogy
Miss Congeniality
Miss Man-Eater
(Coming Soon)
Miss Hollywood
(Coming Soon)
To my parents, who have always loved and supported their children throughout all their endeavors.
“She was a wild, wicked slip of a girl. She burned too brightly for this world.”
Emily Brontë,
Wuthering Heights
“C
ome on, Brea.” Alexander Richards knocked softly on the door. Brea Richards pulled back the door slowly, her black hair hanging down in strings to frame her heart-shaped face and expressive blue eyes. He smiled softly, reading the fear in her eyes before he slowly pushed the door open to let himself into her bedroom. She stood back and stared at him, her hero, always standing guard. He protected her, told her when it was safe to come out, and made sure Mama and her bad men didn’t get her. He made sure she didn’t touch the bad stuff either. At least, that’s what he called the white stuff laying on the table the other day. She wanted to have some, because she thought it was sugar and she loved sweets, but he told her it wasn’t. She was hungry now, but there wasn’t any food in the cabinet yesterday.
That’s why Brea was anxious to get to school; even though Mama said it was a bad place, she loved it. She got food. School was clean, so she didn’t have to worry about what she touched, and no one was mean to her there. She was really smart, too. Her teacher, Mrs. Connelly, told her so, but when she told Mama, Mama ignored her. She hated being ignored so she told her again, but Mama said the teacher was stupid, and Brea was dumb if she believed her.
“Look, Mama is asleep, so we have to go really slowly.” Alex’s solemn blue eyes, wise beyond their years, stared at her. She nodded. This was nothing new. They did this most days Mama was here. Some nights, Mama stayed away and Brea wasn’t required to hide, but those nights were few and far between.
“There is a guy out there, but he’s asleep, too.” Again, nothing new. Brea nodded again before grabbing Alex’s hands, to make their way to the front door. She tried to walk quietly so Mama didn’t wake up, but it was hard because her feet hurt. Her shoes didn’t fit, but Alex told her there were no more shoes. She tried to be a good girl, so she could get some later on. She heard Tanya Marshall say to Amber Green, if Tanya were a good girl, then her mama would get her new shoes. Brea just hoped her mama would do the same thing, but she didn’t think so. Alex was generally the one who surprised her with shoes or clothes when she needed them.
They crept out, passing their mama and the man, careful not to touch the needles on the ground. Sometimes, Mama forgot to pick them up, and Alex told her she couldn’t touch them. She didn’t want to, either. Whenever Mama put the needle in her arm, she started acting funny, and she got really mean and let men come over. Some days, Brea wished for a daddy. He wouldn’t let her mama do bad stuff or let those weird men come here. At least, she thought he wouldn’t; that’s what she read in her books from school. They said daddies protected their little girls.
“Brea.” She looked up from her math sheet when Mrs. Connelly called her. She was standing at the classroom door with a man. Mrs. Connelly waved her over, and Brea put her pencil down before she walked slowly to the door. She didn’t like strange men, but the man looked nice. He stood with the corners of his mouth tipped up in a slight smile, holding a folder, and wearing a tie with turtles on it. Brea liked turtles, and she liked the way he crouched down in front of her to look her in the eyes.
Brea was too young to understand, but she instinctively knew her life was about to change tremendously. She didn’t know it at the time, but Derrick Scott was a godsend. He was a school social worker who plucked Alex and her out of her mother’s home and into his own within months of that first meeting. As improbable as it was, he and his wife wanted children, and they saw something in her and Alex they wanted to keep. Never again would she go hungry or have to worry about strange men and dirty needles. At eight years old, she knew something was off with the way she lived; ten years later and she knew the truth.
Her mother was a prostitute who had sex for money to feed her drug habit. Coke, heroin, or meth — if it could be snorted, smoked, or injected, she did it. Although Brea knew it was a disease, it was hard not to be bitter against a woman who chose drugs over her children. Brea didn’t even know her father, probably one of her mother’s johns who she would never know. She had asked her mom who her father was in the handful of times she had seen her since she had been removed from her home, but her mother just scoffed and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know, brat.”
At eight, she was hungry for food and a warm, safe place to rest her head. At eighteen, she was hungry for stardom. Her Uncle Derrick and Aunt Silvia, as she and her brother called their adopted parents, knew, and blessedly understood, she wanted out. For as long as she could remember, she wanted to be a movie star, to forge her way in an industry known to chew people up and spit them out like they were candy; but Brea knew she could survive. You don’t live as she did for eight years and not come out stronger in the end. She knew her looks would only get her so far. With her haunting, blue eyes and long, black hair, she was one of those classically-beautiful women who men stopped and looked at twice. However, she didn’t just have her looks. She was tenacious as hell, and she would show every damn body who called her poor white trash. She was going to be a celebrity. People everywhere would know her name, and no one would look down on her again.
She had the support of Derrick and Silvia to pursue her dream. She had already told them goodbye this morning; the only person left was Alex. She sighed, thinking of her older brother. Despite living with Derrick and Silvia for over ten years, they never officially adopted Brea and Alex. Their damn mother refused to let them go. She couldn’t care for her own children, but wouldn’t allow someone to officially take over the task. Like a child with her favorite toy, she refused to share but didn’t want to play with it. She didn’t often think of her mother, and no matter how fucking guilty it made Brea feel, sometimes she thought it would be easier if her mother were dead. At least then, the albatross would be gone from her neck. She shook her head; today was supposed to be a happy day. If only she could make her brother see he didn’t owe their mother anything. He continued to take care of her and watch out for her, more of a parent to their mother than she had ever been to either of them.