Chapter 6 #2
I shook my head, still pressed against her shoulder. “I’ve imagined kissing him, Rach. Wanted to. Imagined doing so much more. After everything, when he made it crystal clear that he was interested in me, I let myself feel what it would be to like him. What if we had—”
“You didn’t.” Her voice was firm. No space for argument. “You didn’t know. And he didn’t know. This isn’t some dark twisted scandal. This is your parents’ fuckup, not yours.”
“But what if I can’t even look at him again?” I asked, voice small.
“Then you don’t. At least not until you can. And in the meantime, you get to rage, cry, buy an unnecessary amount of peanut brittle, and plan your dramatic coming-of-age memoir.”
I pulled back, wiping my eyes with the edge of my sleeve. “You think anyone would actually read that?”
“Please. I'd pre-order it, annotate it, and submit it to Oprah’s Book Club myself.”
That made me laugh again, this time less watery, and a little more real.
She handed me her slushie. “Here. You look like you could use three cups of sugar and half a brain freeze.”
I took a long sip. It was violently red and tasted like cherry-flavored chemicals and comfort.
Rachel pulled a pair of fuzzy platypus socks from the cart. “I also got you a present. You’re welcome.”
“I hate that I love these,” I muttered, sniffling.
“You’re welcome again.”
For the first time all day, I didn’t feel like the floor was about to fall out from under me. Rachel might not be able to fix it, but she didn’t try to. She just stood there, matching me wound for wound, sarcasm for sadness, and fury for grief.
She was exactly what I needed.
Maybe more than I deserved.
“Okay,” I said, nodding slowly. “Let’s buy too much sugar and maybe something completely ridiculous that I don’t need.”
“Like a collapsible kayak?” she asked, already steering the cart toward the back.
“Exactly like that.”
For a few minutes, in the middle of a gas station wonderland where no one knew who I was, I almost felt okay.
The cart clattered down an aisle of souvenir shot glasses and novelty keychains while Rachel narrated a hyperbolic plan that involved duct tape, a tarp, and “very dramatic lighting.” Her mind went from disaster response to arson-movie set design in about three seconds flat, which I appreciated even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t laugh.
She rattled off options like a bad infomercial host—lawyers, PR, burying the phones in the ocean—and then paused, like she’d remembered something crucial.
“Oh, right,” she said suddenly, her expression all business.
She dug into the bottom of the cart and produced, no joke, a little red jerry can and a shovel with a bright yellow handle.
“I always keep a shovel,” she added, as if that explained everything.
“For planting things. Or metaphorically burying the past. Or actual burying if we decide to commit felonies, which we won’t. Mostly.”
I stared at her. The shovel looked absurdly small and very, very clean. The gas can looked exactly like the one in movies—ominous and too red.
“You’re joking,” I said.
“Maybe.” She leaned toward me, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “But, for real, I’m pragmatic. If you want to disappear for a weekend, you won’t need to drag anything more than this. If you just want to bury your feelings in a literal hole and pour some coffee on top, we have options.”
Her ridiculousness was a kind of antidote. I let myself be ridiculous back. “Do we get matching trench coats and accents? Because I’ll only go full fugitive if you promise a trench coat.”
Rachel considered this, brow furrowing. “Only if you promise to wear the tiny sunglasses on the third day.”
We laughed—half hysterical, half relieved—and for a minute I actually imagined us in those sunglasses: two fugitives in the aisles of Jax Mart, stealing granola and the quiet anonymity of other shoppers’ indifference.
Then my phone vibrated.
It felt like a punch.
One message, then another, then a full-on landslide.
The preview on my lock screen showed the first hint: a group pic, a party, someone’s hand too low on a girl’s waist. Then came more—the guys.
My friends. My best friends, the ones who’d taken a silent vow to keep me locked behind some glass wall like I was sacred or radioactive.
Yet… here they were.
Different nights. Different girls. Sometimes blurry, sometimes clear.
Sometimes laughing, other times with lips barely a breath apart.
There were cups in hands, glow from phones, a few balcony shots that screamed after midnight and someone’s shirt’s already off.
One with Jake practically inhaling a girl I didn’t even recognize.
Another with Coop and two girls in a pool.
There was Bubba, sprawled back in a chair and a girl on her knees in front of him.
The angle hid exactly what she was doing but with his hand in her hair, it was pretty clear.
And Archie—God, Archie—with his signature smirk and someone straddling his lap.
My stomach dropped.
Not because I was shocked by what they were doing. But because they’d all made me untouchable. Like I was too precious or too volatile or too whatever to touch.
But this?
They were saints in speeches and sinners in silence.
I stared at the photos, teeth sinking into my bottom lip to stop the wave of I-don’t-even-know-what that tried to rise. Rage? Humiliation? Betrayal? I didn’t have the words yet, just the heat spreading under my skin like a burn that had taken its sweet time to blister.
Rachel caught a glimpse of the phone. Her mouth twisted into a dark, mockery of a smile. “Well, well,” she said, voice going sharp. “If it’s not the weekly meeting of the dicks are us, club.”
I didn’t answer. I just kept scrolling. The captions were smug. Boys will be boys with a devil emoji. Summer to remember. Don’t tell Frankie lol. That one made me pause.
“You have to stop opening those,” she said, voice low. “They’re bait. They want a reaction.”
“Do I look like I have restraint?” I asked, then immediately felt stupid. “No, I obviously don’t.”
Rachel’s voice softened, but only a little. “You okay?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Want me to gaslight them until they cry? Because I have a shovel, but I also have a gift for psychological warfare.”
I snorted, more a forced breath than a real laugh, but I appreciated the offer.
Rachel nodded toward the phone. “Shovel offer still on the table.”
I let the screen go dark and slipped it into the bottom of my tote like it was a cursed object. “How old do you have to be to get a tattoo?”
Rachel blinked. “What?”
I looked up at her. “If it’s eighteen, maybe I should go dye my hair. Or—I don’t know. Do something that’s mine. Something reckless but only in a me kind of way.”
She gave me a long, measured look, then smiled like she’d been waiting for me to say that. “Tattoo shops won’t card you if you look confident. But hair dye’s cheaper than a tat—cheaper than therapy too. I’m thinking purple.”
“Purple?” I echoed.
“Purple,” she confirmed. “It says I’m no one’s dirty little secret and I’ll set your bed on fire in a hot way all in one.”
“Good,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Because I’m done being protected from a world that’s already burning.”
Rachel grabbed the cart and wheeled us toward the exit like she was leading a jailbreak. “Then let’s go start a fire, girlfriend.”