“Nothing, I just believe in karma is all.”
“Eyes front, please, girls!” the teacher calls, tapping the whiteboard with her fingers.
We look up front for a while until I whisper, “Is it true? Did he really sleep with you and then abandon you at a gas stop?”
She nods, her eyes watery at the memory. “I was a virgin too. I really thought he liked me.”
“What a monster,” I breathe, looking back at the board.
“He’s very convincing so be careful, okay?”
I nod. Oh, I’ll be careful all right.
“Thanks for telling me, it can’t be easy to talk about.”
“It’s not, but anything I can do to help a sister.”
She’s so fake. I hate that about her. Even while being honest she’s just so insincere, it rubs me the wrong way. I want to tell her that I don’t like her and to stop talking to me, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.
“I saw something on the news earlier,” Willow tells me as I thread my fingers through her hair. She’s on the floor between my knees, her head resting back on my thighs. “They found a body off the I-5.”
“Eww.” What is it with everybody’s obsession with death today?
She snorts. “Not eww. It’s sad.”
I blink. “I don’t want to talk about death and murder and anything else. Okay?”
“But…”
“No,” I snap. “You know I don’t like it.”
She pushes away and glares at me. “You’re such a bitch these days.”
“Well, I’m under a lot of pressure, what do you expect?”
“You mean taking care of me?”
“No.” I soften my features. “Never because of you… just… All the moving and I don’t have a fucking clue what they’re talking about in classes. I feel like an idiot.”
“I’ve been doing your homework.”
“I know and I appreciate it.” I mutter and hug her. She’s so frail. I can feel her slipping from me and I can’t cope with it. I have to do something to make her stronger again. “Did you take your medication?”
“It makes me woozy.”
“You’re already woozy,” I grumble and pull her back to me so I can braid her hair.
She laughs gently, breathily. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“We need to get you out and get you some sunshine, you look awful.”
“Thanks, sis,” she grumbles and curls under my arm on the couch.
Approximately ten minutes later there’s a knock at my door. An odd occurrence seeing as our neighbors did the welcome wagon already and we haven’t given out our address to anybody in town.
“I’ll get it,” I say to Willow who is almost asleep. She hums and curls into a ball, remaining where she is. As bad as it sounds to an outsider, sometimes I envy her illness. To have a constant excuse to not deal with people and a quick exit out of life without having to bring it upon yourself.
I pad through the hall and to the door, my freshly painted toes are bloodred. A contrast to the cream carpets that run through the hall.
Whoever it is knocks again, louder this time, more insistent.
“Just a sec,” I snap and look through the peephole. When I see his elongated profile through the domed spyglass, I let my forehead thud against the door for a second before yanking it open. “Nash… what are you doing here?”
“I said seven.”
“I said no.”
“Well…” He points to Nok’s truck on the street and smiles a triumphant smile. “We’re all going so you have to.”
Looking sheepish and hopeful with eyes so much like his brother’s, he stuffs his hands into his jeans and waits.
“Who is we?”
“Huh?”
I snort and roll my eyes at his obliviousness. “You said we’re all going?”
“Oh, right, me, Nok, Joseph. A couple of Nok’s friends from school are meeting us there.”
“And Joseph is where? I only see your brother in the truck.”
His smile broadens. “We’re getting him on the way. Don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone.” I look between him and the truck again and can’t think of a good reason to not go. In fact, I can think of about ten reasons why I want to.
One of them is that I love movies, another is because Nokosi is driving, which means alone time with him, which means progress.
“Give me five minutes, I need to…” I glance back at the room where my sister is on the sofa out of sight. “Get my shoes and stuff.”
“You’re coming?”
I close the door in his face and puff out my cheeks. I was looking forward to just a night in alone with my favorite person in the whole world. But plans change and this is good.
When I enter the room she’s gone, and then I hear her bedroom door close upstairs right before my phone vibrates.
Willow: Have fun. The sooner you get this out of your system the better.
I slip my sandals on because I can’t be bothered to find my sneakers, and then exit my house with my bag over one shoulder.
“Shotgun!” I yell with a smirk and race towards the truck where Nok is sitting behind the wheel, eyes ahead. He looks annoyed about something, could it be because I’m joining them?
Not that I care or even feel apologetic about that in the slightest. I’m just curious.
Nash races me, beating me to the door by a millisecond, but only to pull it open and motion for me to climb in. I do so, admiring the cream leather interior and decked-out dash. No wonder Nok yanked me out of his truck. I was covered in grease. I get it now.
“Your truck is ballin’,” I mutter as I squeeze into the middle seat, careful not to sit too close to Nok. Nash sits to my right and I jolt when Nok reaches across me for my seatbelt and clicks me in. I swear he inhales my hair as he passes. I almost do the same, but I need my panties dry. “Can we listen to the radio?”
He turns the knobs and presses the small screen as Nash smiles apologetically at me. Likely because his brother is being rude. Or he thinks he’s being rude. I don’t mind that he doesn’t want to talk. It makes it easier to dislike him. Although when he does talk it’s not usually very nice so even then I still don’t like him. He just rubs me the wrong way, all the while rubbing me all the right ways. Metaphorically speaking. He hasn’t properly touched me yet and I hate how much I want him to.
“So, popcorn or fries?” Nash asks.
Raising my brows, I snap playfully, “You’re gonna force me out here and then make me choose?”
“So… both?”
“Duh.”
“And your popcorn, how do you like it, salted or sweet?”
“Both mixed together.”
Nash grimaces. “You two can share then. I’m getting sweet. Nobody likes salted and sweet mixed together.”
“Nobody but us,” Nok retorts, his eyes on the road so I’m extremely surprised when he flicks a bug off my bare thigh. A bug I didn’t notice, and he did, despite the fact he’s driving and paying attention. How? Is he always watching me, and I just don’t notice?