Next Big Book Thing: Excerpt: Riley’s Secret (A Moon’s Glow Novel) by Christina Smith

Chapter One

The Football Field

I remember the first time I realized I didn’t belong in my family. The three of us were in the back of our limo, stopped at a stop sign, when my father noticed a family of four standing at a bus stop. “What’s wrong with those people? How can they subject their children to public transportation?” he asked, his voice a mix of disgust and his usual arrogance. “It’s dirty and crowded.”

My mother nodded in agreement, her head bobbing up and down like the little bobble-head dogs you see on the dashboard of cars.

“Maybe they can’t afford a car, Dad, did you ever think of that?” I answered, feeling shocked and embarrassed by my father’s words.

“Maybe they should get a job, Megan. Did you ever think of that?” It was the first time, but not the last, that his voice was filled with irritation when he spoke to me.

I didn’t respond to his absurd words. I was stunned silent—and I was ten.

I’m no longer shocked when either of my parents say or do something cold and insensitive. It’s who they are, and I’ve long since accepted that.

When people tell me I look like my mother, I know they mean it as a compliment, but that’s not how I take it. While she is beautiful, with long, flowing platinum hair, pale blue eyes, and smooth, flawless skin. The saying beauty is only skin deep definitely applies to her. My hair is more of a strawberry-blond, a lot darker than my mother’s, and my eyes are green. It might not be a big deal to anybody else, but to me, it’s a visible difference between us, showing that I am nothing like her.

I have always felt like an imposter in my own life, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst my friends and family. All anybody sees when they look at me is an eighteen-year-old girl, wearing designer clothes and driving a shiny red convertible. I’m a Banks, rich, spoiled, popular, and given everything I want. But that is far from the truth. How can I have what I want, when I don’t know what that is?

For as long as I can remember I’ve felt something missing from my life, and sometimes believed it was a connection to another person. The closest I’ve come to that feeling was with our cook and gardener. Did that even count? Would they even be in my life if they weren’t paid to be?

Of course I had friends, although I wasn’t sure if they’d still be here if I had a different last name. Would I be a cheerleader hanging out with the captain and hunky football players if my father wasn’t senior partner in his law firm? Would my friends want to visit me if we didn’t have a pool, hot tub, and tennis courts? Sometimes my life felt so foreign, I expected to wake one morning to my true family. Go downstairs, have a real conversation with my parents, eating cereal and arguing with my siblings. My father would actually look up at me from behind his newspaper and smile as I stole a piece of his slightly burnt toast that my mother had made for him. Instead of the cook, who really was a substitute for my biological mother—who wouldn’t be caught dead out of bed before noon.