Chapter 8
“I don’t see why I need to be here for this,” I complain for the fifth time since we arrived.
After a long day of gardening in the hot sun, my back hurts, my head’s pounding, and all I want is to go home. Maybe take a nap or smoke a joint or literally anything, but watch Diana flutter around an overpriced boutique, all excited about a date with Scott.
I lean against a rack of blouses that all look the same and wipe the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “I don’t know why you want my help anyway. I own like… two pairs of jeans and this—” I gesture at my flannel. “is my good shirt.”
She rolls her eyes. “Because, Lily, this is what friends do. They shop together. They help each other get ready for dates, it’s fun.” She flashes me this annoyingly bright smile. She doesn’t even look like she worked in the hot sun for eight hours. Me, on the other hand?
“I can see why, I’m having a blast.”
“Oh!” Diana gasps dramatically. She grabs a green dress off the hanger and shoves it toward me. “You should try this on! It totally matches your eyes!”
I stare at the dress. Then at her. Then back at the dress.
I don’t even justify that with a response.
Diana sighs and hangs the dress back up. “Fine, don’t try anything on. But at least tell me if this is cute.” She lifts a white blouse with embroidered flowers.
“It’s a shirt, Di.”
She groans, throwing her head back like I’m being impossible. “You’re no help.”
I cross my arms, ready to argue again, but she starts flipping through hangers.
It echoes around the empty shop, and I watch her, the way she’s vibrating with excitement, and finally, I ask the question I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since they first walked the halls of Rosehill High, hand in hand.
“So what’s the plan with Scott?”
“Oh.” She lights up instantly. “We’re going to that new place off Main Street. You know, the romantic one with all of the candles? He’s picking me up at seven.”
“Sounds… fancy. But I mean, long term.” I pretend to inspect a price tag. Forty dollars. For a shirt.
She shrugs, but color fills in her cheeks. “He’s sweet. And he really likes me. I think he might be the one.”
That makes me snort.
She stops rifling and turns to me, lips pursed. “What?”
“It’s just… Scott? The one? Really?”
She narrows her eyes. “Yes, really. I know he can be a little…. silly, but he has other traits too. Good ones.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“He does,” she insists, crossing her arms to mirror me. “He’s thoughtful and he’s sweet and, don’t look at me like that, you don’t see the side of him that I do.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“How can you know? You always have an attitude when he comes to see us, you’ve never even tried to get to know him.”
“There’s not much to know,” I say. “He likes football and beer and hanging out with people that worship him.”
Diana rolls her eyes so hard I half expect them to fall out of her head. “God, Lily, He’s eighteen, what do you expect? Shakespeare?”
“I expect you not to plan your whole future around someone who doesn’t even know how to spell Mississippi.”
“It’s a hard word,” She huffs, her cheeks bright pink now. “You don’t get it. He’s sweet to me. He treats me well. And when I’m with him,” She presses her lips together, searching for the right words. “I feel… special.”
Special.
Special in a way I’ve never been able to make her feel, no matter how hard I try. She still needs him to make her feel that way. I shouldn’t have brought it up, I knew I wouldn’t like the answer.
“Yeah.” My gaze drifts to the floor as the fight drains out of me. “Guess that’s something.”
“I know you don’t like him, but… I think he and I have a real chance, Lily. A future.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “Maybe if you saw us together, you’d understand. Everyone says we’re perfect for each other.”
I let out a slow breath, tossing the expensive shirt on top of the rack. “Sure, maybe.”
That makes her light up, like she needed my permission to keep dreaming. She steps forward to wrap her arms around me. “See? You can be supportive when you try.”
“Right,” I say, thoroughly annoyed, but I can’t help but relax in her arms.
Diana disappears behind the curtain of the fitting room with her latest armful of options, leaving me on a velvet bench that feels like it was designed specifically to make my ass hurt.
I rub my temples, trying to will away the sharp pulse behind my eyes.
“Lily? Can you come here?”
I groan loud enough for the whole store to hear, then push myself up to tug the curtain aside enough to peek in. “What now?”
She’s facing me in a hideous purple dress with way too much fabric. “I can’t get it off,” she says, arms reaching awkwardly behind her. “The zipper, ugh, it’s stuck halfway.”
I step inside, because apparently this is my life now. “How many dresses is this? Ten? Fifteen?”
“It’s only eight.”
I gesture for her to turn around with a sigh. “Okay, let me see the damage.”
She does, sweeping her hair over her shoulder in one effortless motion that somehow makes my brain short-circuit. The zipper’s stuck halfway down, caught on a loose string of fabric.
“It’s really stuck,” I mutter, pinching the dress together and tugging. “Hold still.”
“I am holding still.”
“Then stop breathing so heavy.”
“I’m breathing normal.”
Okay, well, breathe less normal,” I grumble, giving the zipper a firm pull. Damaging the thing would probably be for the best, really.
When she’s finally free, she doesn’t even wait for me to look away. She shoves the purple disaster down her hips in one motion, the fabric pooling at her feet, and lets out a sigh of relief as her breasts bounce free. Completely unbothered by the fact that I’m standing right behind her.
I freeze.
I’ve never seen her like this before. Not in the light. Her reflection is right there. Soft tan skin, lighter on her chest, where she hasn’t tanned.
Fuck.
I whip around so fast I nearly trip over my own feet. “Jesus, Di! Warn me next time!”
“What? It’s not like you haven’t seen—”
“Yeah, well, this is… this is different!”
Her laughter rings out bright and unbothered.
I stare at the opposite wall, face burning, waiting for her to pull on another dress before I can leave.
She isn’t teasing me. She isn’t trying to torture me. She genuinely didn’t think twice about being naked around me.
Because she has no idea what she does to me at all.
Pat and I are hunched over the broken metal table outside my trailer, playing Go Fish like it’s the most thrilling game ever invented. Which, to be fair, in our current state, it kinda is.
The joint we shared is still hanging over us like a soft blanket, and Pat keeps giggling down at his cards. “Okay. Let’s see….”
“Today.”
“Do you…” He says, pausing for dramatic effect. “…have any fives?”
“No.”
“You hesitated,” he accuses, eyes wide. “You fuckin’ hesitated, you little cheater!”
“No, I was thinking about how dumb you look right now.” He slaps a hand over his heart like I’ve wounded him, then dissolves into a wheezy laugh, tipping backward in his chair so far he almost falls.
I reach out to steady him and that sets me off, and then we’re both bent over this stupid card table, laughing at absolutely nothing.
It takes him a whole minute to recover before he reaches for the deck. He pulls a card, looks at it, and then holds it up proudly. “A five!” He gestures at the sky. “Thank you, God.”
“You’re… you’re unbelievable. And going to hell.”
I’m still giggling when the sound fills my ears. A smooth, purring engine of a car, unlike anything anybody drives around here. “Whoa,” Pat says, his voice dropping into an impressed whisper. “Someone rich is lost.”
I turn in my seat in time to see a shiny blue car creeping along the gravel road, sunlight glinting off its polished hood. “Holy crap, man. It’s like the sky. You can see the sky in it. Is that normal?”
The car turns and pulls right up in front of my place, and as I expected, Scott climbs out, dressed in a crisp polo and khakis, looking like he took a wrong turn on the way to the country club.
He pauses, taking in my trailer, my fucked up table, the two of us higher than a kite, and I swear I see the moment he turns up his nose.
And normally, I’d be pissed, but right now, it makes me burst into another giggle fit. I smack my hand over my mouth, but it gets Pat going too, which makes me laugh harder, until Scott starts walking toward us with the stiffest, most polite posture I’ve ever seen on a person.
He gives a little wave. “Uh… hi?”
Pat waves back.
I elbow him, still snickering. “Stop, oh my god.”
“Have either of you seen Diana?”
We both stare up at him, waiting for his words to sink in. “Have we seen her?” Pat repeats, blinking. “Like… today? Or in the philosophical sense?”
I kick his shin under the table. “He means today, genius.”
“Oh, then…” he pauses, thinking about it even though we’ve spent the entire day exactly where we are right now. “No.”
Scott looks between us, confused and slightly alarmed. Rich boy’s never seen a couple of potheads before, figures. He starts back toward his car, clearly deciding we’re useless.
He makes it two steps before it cuts through the fog in my head. He’s looking for Diana. They had a date last night.
“Wait,” I call out, “I thought you two had a date.”
Scott turns, his face tightening. “We did.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “But she freaked. I tried calling her house. No answer. I figured she might’ve come here.” He gestures vaguely at my trailer, like he can’t believe he’s saying the words. “But clearly she didn’t.”
“She just… left?”
“She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. Only that she had to go.”
I stand up so fast my chair turns over and the world tilts, my head going floaty for a second, but I brace myself on the table. “No, something’s wrong. I’m going to check on her.”
Scott takes a step forward. “I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“What? Why not?”