I was in my rrom reading when my mother knocked on my door. I didn't even bother looking up. My mother stood at the doorway with my father, her perfume and his cologne entering my room before they did.

"Lillian darling your father and I are off to another one of our cocktail parties. We won't be back until tomorrow. We have a cruise this weekend and we're leaving on Friday. You're welcome to invite anyone over," she told me: "feel free to order whatever it is you wish for dinner."

They left my doorway and went down the staircase and out the door, laughing as they went.

I sighed and put the book face down on my bed. Another lonely night. I would invite my friends over but I didn't know what they were doing. And Jennifer didn't have a phone, or the internet. Luna was prolly at some wicca convention or other, or possibly a pagan one. Holly might've gone skiing and I didn't know where Alexa was. So it was just me and the house. As usual. My parents were terribly irresponsible and terribly tipsy or drunk. Or, at least my mother was. They weren't fit to be parents. My mother had not grown up a socialite but when she married my father Jack seemed she turned into one and traded her daughter for the drink. She only drank wine, or champagne, only classy drinks. I hardly ever drank; that was how I got raped. My parents didn't know this and they prolly didn't care. Money doesn't buy happiness at least not for me.