My entire face reddens. “Thanks for the suggestion, but I already have plans.”

Alan focuses on gathering up his things. “I want you to tell me the truth. You never being home, is it about me, Kaley? Or the nonsense in the press? Or something else your mother and I don’t know?”

I gape.

Really?

Do you actually want me to believe you don’t know why I can’t stand being here with you?

“It has nothing to do with you,” I say dismissively. “I do have a life, Alan.”

“We used to have a good relationship. I don’t know why you’re so hostile now.”

“I’m not eight anymore. I’m not hostile. I don’t avoid you. I don’t think of you at all.”

Those words unexpectedly cut at my insides.

That was mean, Kaley, mean. Far from the truth, not what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Crap, I need to get the fuck out of here right now before this all blows up into something even more unpleasant.

I start to turn away, but Alan’s gaze halts me, flooding me with an array of unsettling, warring sensations.

“If you are always gone and eager to move out because of me, then I’m sorry,” he says softly, his voice potent with tightly leashed emotion. “That is not what I wanted. If it’s something else I wish you’d confide in your mother. If you’re angry over the garbage being spewed in the press, then I want you to know this directly from me. The only true things you’ve read are that I’ve loved your mother most of my life and Khloe is my daughter. The rest, sweetheart, is lies.”

I stare at him, my insides growing colder and colder with each second. A non-denial denial that I’m his daughter since that is part of the ‘lies’ in the rag sheets these day. I can’t get air into my lungs. I hold back the tears until I’m in my bedroom.

*  *  *

When I get to Bobby’s, his car is already gone and he’s left for the desert. Damn. I pull out of the Rowans’ driveway and head for the Kennedys’.

I’m let into the house by the housekeeper, and quickly make my way to Zoe’s room. She’s sitting on her bed wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top—crap, I was right. Depression city—staring at something on her iPad with a wounded dimness in her eyes.

I feel kind of wounded myself after that hideous talk with Alan on the patio. Zoe being a mess gives me something to focus on other than the sorry state of my own life.

I toss down my bag and flop onto my stomach on her bed. “What’s wrong? More crap from Natasha?”

She shakes her head, and clicks off the tablet before I can see the screen. “Nothing. I just really wish we were going to Palm Springs.”

“Me, too.” I shake my head and groan. “I wish you’d been at school today. It was hideous from first bell. The worst freaking day ever. Bizarreness from beginning to end. Everyone in my business about everything. Natasha and her posse. Mr. Jamison actually sent me to OCD this afternoon. Mrs. Trent wanted to have that ‘I’m not just your teacher, I’m your friend’ girl chat. All worried and shit about me over something. And the cherry on the cake of my day was quality time with my current male parental figure. I’ve been ordered not to post any of my work online and then, to add insult to injury, he in not-so-many words denied he was my father.”

Zoe’s eyes go wide. “He didn’t?”

I nod.

“Are you OK?”

“Sure. Great,” I whisper, trying to speak through the lump in my throat.

She studies me, gnawing at her lower lip. “Maybe you should cool it with your websites and blogs for a while. Some of the Kaley’s Word stuff. It’s not funny anymore. Especially the stuff about Alan. It’s sort of—”

I give her the stare. “Sort of what?”

She lifts her chin. “Wrong.”

“Well, I think those videos are just fine.” I let out a frustrated breath. “And it’s not like anyone knows I’m doing them or that they’re about Alan or anyone else I post about. No one knows I’m Kaley’s World. And the only reason you know who they’re about is because you know me. It’s not wrong. It’s satire. And no one knows for sure who the videos are about.”

“What if someone hacked you? Found out? You’ve been saying some really unkind things, Kaley. Even about Khloe.”

I roll my eyes. “They won’t. It’s all cool, Zoe.”

“No, Kaley, there is nothing cool about any of the things you’ve been posting online on your secret accounts lately.”

We square off with our eyes and Zoe looks away first.

Thank God.

I don’t want to talk about my social media accounts, I don’t want to talk about my dad, and I definitely don’t want to have another Kaley, you should tell Bobby about this discussion. Nope, not doing it. Bobby would blow if he saw any of it.

“So what do you want to do this weekend?” I ask, abruptly changing the subject.

She crinkles her nose. “Anything. I’m bored out of my skull. My folks took off for Morea this morning and the house is so quiet I can’t stand it.”

“Your folks are gone? There is no one home.”

Zoe nods. “For a month.”

“Damn it, Zoe. We could have gone to Palm Springs. Ian and Yotti wouldn’t even have known if we’d taken off.”

Her pretty face grows anxious and serious. “Nope. Not lying to them. This time I’m staying home like they told me to. I’ve been sitting here all day thinking about all the things I haven’t been busted for yet and how pissed off they’re going to be if they ever discover them. Ian totally flipped out when he found out—and thank you, Kaley, for posting it on your Facebook—that I went to Mexico with Jake without tell them. I’ve never seen Ian so angry. But my dad really scared me with all that ‘this is what could happen to you’ shit. I’m going to lay low for a while, Kaley, and I think maybe you should, too.”

I blink at her.

Shit.

We’re finally over eighteen.

Now is when she decides we should do what we’re told to?

*  *  *

“Don’t post it, Kaley. Enough already. She’s not going to back down. Let it go.”

I ignore Zoe and hit post anyway.

“You want me to stop the cyberwar, give me Natasha’s phone number or tell me where she lives so I can have it out with her face-to-face. This shit needs to stop. Now, Zoe. I don’t want her bullying you anymore and the photo she’s spreading of Jake with another girl is bullshit. Fake. Photoshopped or something. He wouldn’t do that to you.”

Zoe gives me an intense look. “I know that. I got over it after I called Jake when she texted me the first one on Friday. Yep, I got butt-hurt when I saw it. Yep, I went off on my boyfriend. But it ended three days ago for me. I don’t know why you keep hitting her back online every time she hits me.”

“Because she’s a bitch and she deserves it and I’m not going to put up with her treating you this way.”

Zoe’s eyes fly wide. “But I don’t care. And I just want the fighting to stop. It’s gotten out of hand. It’s going to be ten times worse now when I go back to school. Can’t you see that, Kaley?”

I slap closed my laptop and flop back on the bed. “Fine. I’ll stop.”

She nods in relief. “Good. It needs to stop. It’s too much for me. I don’t want to fight with anyone.”

I pout. “I’m sorry. But you’re my best friend. I love you. And I can’t stand when those girls hurt you.”

She smiles. “Boy, when you say you’re going to have someone’s back you mean it.”

She makes a silly face and I laugh.

Then I groan.

“Maybe I did take it too far. Bobby is going to be so pissed if he sees any of it. Definitely not among my most stellar moments.”

“Some of it was kind of funny,” Zoe offers carefully.

I shake my head. “No. You’re right. I took it too far.”

Ding.

Oh fuck, that was fast. Fucking Natasha. Zoe’s right. She’s never backing down.

Zoe grabs her phone off the bed and holds it away from me. “Don’t look at it. It’s my text. I don’t want to see it. We’ve decided it stops.”