The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back (The Ugly Stepsister #1)

by Sariah Wilson

I flopped down on the couch next to Trent. He had entered his details into the phone, and then called himself to get her number. He glanced toward the kitchen and then returned to the main screen on Ella's phone. He found her music folder and opened it. He started scrolling. "What are you doing?" He gave me a withering look, like I should have known better than to ask. "I'm looking at her playlist." Trent had this theory that you could tell everything you needed to know about a person just by looking at the music they have downloaded. "Nice," he muttered more to himself than to me. I attempted to take the phone back but he jerked it out of my reach. "Just a second. Let me finish." I folded my arms and glared. He shouldn't be going through Ella's phone, but I couldn't get worked up enough over it to stop him. "Look at this," he said with more excitement in his voice than I'd heard in years. "She has Saves The Day, The Smiths, and Sunny Day Real Estate on here. She's the only girl I've met whose playlist doesn't include at least ten crappy songs. Do you know how rare that is?" He was talking about me. "Your theory is deeply flawed." "Says the girl with ten Justin Bieber songs on her phone."

My parents met at some artist retreat/hippie commune. I didn't know the details, because I had a don't ask, don't tell policy when it came to Dad and his ex-wives. I did know that they got married two weeks after meeting each other. Dad's excuse about their quickie marriage was, "What can I say? I'm a romantic." I'm pretty sure that's code for "I'm an idiot."

They divorced ten months later (surprise, surprise) and she left me with him because she needed to find herself in New York. Personally, I thought she should go back and check again and see if she could find a nicer version of herself there.

"She's not always so nice." Jake let out a chuckle. "You don't have to tell me. She can be kind of a witch sometimes." "I'm pretty sure if you look up the word witch on Wikipedia, Mercedes's picture will be there." I did not tell him that I was the one who posted it.

"She doesn't see me. Oh no. I'm missing my chance!" Jake called out, "Scott! Mercedes!" and waved. A bag of chips and a two-liter soda while playing poker yesterday with Jake: $6.98. One deck of cards to play poker with: $1.99. Winning the poker bet and seeing the look on Mercedes Bentley's face as I stood with Jake Kingston next to his car? Abso-freaking-lutely priceless. Mercedes had her arm through Scott's, but now she dropped her arm slowly and just stared at us. She looked totally shocked. This was where I admit to being greedy and a tad manipulative and just a little ruthless, but it was Jake Kingston! I had to be forgiven for what I was about to do. I don't know where this insane courage came from, but I actually said, "Can I ask you for a weird favor? You can totally say no and don't have to, but would you mind hugging me for a second?" By now I think Jake found the whole thing hilarious. "Sure."

I nodded meekly, which had Andre telling me to keep my head still. So many hands on my head all at once. I was being tugged in a hundred different directions. Everything today had been painful and boring and long. "I know I'm new to getting ready for a date and all, but surely it's supposed to be less painful and stupid than this." "No, this is about right," Andre informed me.

I had totally forgotten about my cold, and had forgotten to take medicine to keep these stupid symptoms at bay. My stress seemed to exacerbate everything. Which was good, because now I had my excuse for staying home. "I can't go," I croaked. "What happened to your voice?" Ella asked. "You sound terrible." "I'm sick. I can't go to the ball. I'm probably contagious." "They're all rich. They can afford doctors. You're going." She had that new determined sound in her voice.

The theme of the dance apparently was, "We have a lot of money." The centerpieces and decorations made the room look like the inside of a French castle.