Chasing Midnight by Courtney King Walker

scent of lily. Mom . . . It’s her favorite flower. In the summer she alwayscuts lilies from our yard and arranges them in a vase for the kitchen table. She’d have them in containers year-round if they bloomed that often. But here they are, staring back at me in a glass vase atop a table at the beginning of November.
    Lilies in the fall cost a lot of money.
    I hit the jackpot a little further down the hallway, where a heavy door opens into to a six-car garage. SIX. That’s five spaces more than my old garage. Three spaces are empty, the others occupied by an orange Range Rover, a black convertible Porsche, and exactly what I’m looking for—a shiny black Beamer.
    Assuming it’s mine, I grab the BMW key fob hanging on the wall and skip down the stairs. Halfway down I stop, overwhelmed by the hugeness of this moment. A smile inches its way across my face as tingles kiss my skin from head to toe. This is what it’s supposed to feel like—being one of the lucky ones: a luxury car to call my own, freshly arranged flowers in the hallways, a clean house, a perfect nose, and a sweet pedicure. I even look the part in my two-hundred-dollar jeans and black silk shirt. What can possibly go wrong with a life like this?

two

    A t school I pull into a parking space, feeling self -conscious about driving something so expensive. It doesn’t feel natural—more like I’m playing make believe and soon my peers will call me out for being a poseur.
    I grab my things and lock the door, loving the beep-beep noise the alarm makes. It sounds so posh.
    “Kenzie,” someone calls from across the street.
    I look up, trying to find a face belonging to the voice, but a row of sycamore trees blocks my view. With my shoulders back and head up like I know what I’m doing and where I’m heading, I cross the street.
    Like nothing about this whole scenario is abnormal.
    But I stop when I realize who called out my name. Brecke Phillips. She’s staring at me in anticipation, like she’s waiting for me.
    What am I supposed to say to her? How do I act normal when I don’t even know what normal is? What’s the protocol for when Brecke Phillips waits for you at the front of the school?
    Quick, think.
    “Cute earrings,” I blurt when I reach her, hoping that will cut it.
    Not so much. She frowns and narrows her eyes at me, though I have no idea why, considering I just gave her acompliment. “Relax, Kenzie. I already said I’d give them back tomorrow, okay?” she says, looking the other way.
    Wait.
    Her earrings are mine? Whoa. I didn’t see that coming.
    “No, that’s not what I . . . never mind,” I say, annoyed at myself for already starting off so shaky.
    We walk the rest of the way up the sidewalk and in through the front doors, me trying to think of the right thing to say. Trying to sound like the richer version of me might sound. “So, how’s it going?” I finally come up with, still not feeling any less stupid than before.
    To my surprise, it works. Brecke’s cherry red smile is back. “Last night was such a blast,” she says, her hand on my arm as we turn down a hallway. “It was perfection, actually—the music, the food, the decorations— everything. Tanner seemed to think so too.” She pulls tighter on my arm, tugging me closer to her. “Too bad we can’t do it at your house every year. You should hear what everyone’s saying.”
    My house. My house on Sea View Drive.
    “I mean, your house makes the rest of us look so ghetto,” she adds.
    I almost laugh, the way she makes it sound like she’s roughing it in a multi-million-dollar house, wherever her house is now since I confiscated her original one in my wishing. Sure, it isn’t the biggest house at the top of Sea View Drive anymore, but if it’s like every other house around here—trying to decide on whether to install a swimming pool or a sport court and then you go ahead and get both—I’m pretty sure that still puts you near the top of the food chain.
    “I