“Rhodes.” It sounded like my voice was coming from outside my body.
She didn’t hear me.
Somewhere on the surface, I was panicking. I knew my stomach should be falling through my butt, and my hands should be shaking, and I should be screaming in the faces of the girls next to me.
There was a Savannah College of Art and Design scholarship with my name on it, and the ink had barely dried. It had been the kind of deus ex machina blessing that only happens in the movies and never to the people who need it in reality—people like me, whose parents were filing for bankruptcy literally the same day as the scholarship winners were announced.
This couldn’t be happening.
To my right, Rhodes and Griffin had disappeared. Sarah was gone, too, and when I ran out the front doors of the old gas station, their car was empty. They left me. All that was left was the panicked-looking Conservatory security officer blocking my view of the parking lot.
From that moment on, everything was different.
* * *
Sylvia’s Diner has always been exactly what it sounds like.
Everything is oak veneer. Everything. The walls, the ceiling, the Formica countertops, the fronts to the refrigerators and stove.
Every. Thing.
The menu is relatively small, and half of the items are sold out in perpetuity because Sylvia (the woman who owns the place) refuses to order the random ingredients she needs for us to throw it together. None of us have food permits, and the only reason the health board hasn’t shut us down is because they like Sylvia’s sweet potato pie too much.
Sarah and I have been working here since the summer before we transferred to the Conservatory, and in two years nothing has changed—even if everything else in our lives has.
“You can’t hate Rhodes forever,” Sarah says, for what feels like the eight millionth time. “You didn’t hate me forever, so I know you’ve got it in you.”
She turns to check her lipstick in the microwave door behind her, a shade of magenta-purple rendered ungodly against her ashy-pale skin. “It wasn’t on purpose—you were behind us, and then you weren’t. Her parents paid your legal fees. Are they supposed to pay for your college, too?”
I don’t want to answer her.
She isn’t wrong—I did forgive Sarah.
I know Sarah wouldn’t have left me behind on purpose.
But Rhodes has been trying to get rid of me for as long as she and Sarah have been friends, and I really have a hard time believing that Rhodes was innocent, too. It would have been too convenient for her if the Conservatory had succeeded in kicking me out.
And plus? I just don’t like her.
I don’t want to like her.
I don’t want to forgive her, because I don’t care about my relationship with her.
“Tubes of lipstick aren’t lollipops. You aren’t supposed to suck on it.” I poke her cheek, and she swipes the extra lipstick off her teeth with the hem of her apron. I don’t say this to her, but I’m so pissed she’s even talking about this right now.
This morning before work was such a weird, delicate thing—we found Rhodes getting ready to dash out the front door at 6:30, mumbling something about chores and darting off to where Griffin was idling at the curb before we could ask any questions.
Sarah was desperately hurt.
I couldn’t decide if I was angry for Sarah or happy for myself.
The rest of the morning has been a gauntlet of keeping Sarah’s spirits up—we painted each other’s nails before we left the house this morning, and I promised that we’d give each other DIY facials and pedicures after work. We’re going to back to my place, where my mom will be babysitting my little nieces and have a tea party.
We’re going to listen to Sarah’s God-awful new music as much as she wants.
I was already exhausted from all the planning by the time we got to work, and yet Sarah was still defending Rhodes’s honor.
“You can suck on it.” She slides me a smile, then turns to open the dishwasher seconds before it starts to beep.
Behind us, an old man sitting at the counter chokes on his country fried steak. His eyes drift downward—down, down, down—and rest on Sarah’s ass as she bends to pull the dishwasher basket out to heft it onto the prep counter against the wall.
The man still has his fork in his hand when I swipe his half-full plate and chuck it into the sink.
“Hope you enjoyed your meal.” I stare at him with as much fire as I can muster, and it takes exactly three seconds for him to lift his eyes from Sarah’s ass to my face.
Pervert.
I don’t say it out loud, but I think it loud enough that it drips from my words.
I smack his receipt onto the counter and turn my attention to Sarah next to me. “How did you even know I was thinking about Rhodes?”
“Because you get this look in your eyes whenever you think about her,” Sarah says, oblivious. She wipes one coffee mug after the next with a damp washcloth. It’s already wet, so it’s doing nothing to wick the condensation from the mugs before she stacks them one at a time on the shelf over our heads. “It looks like you’re thinking about murder.”
“Maybe I am,” I say.
The man and I are nothing but eye contact now—him with his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, me with my hands on my hips and swelling to every centimeter of five whole feet tall. He’s eavesdropping on our conversation, and he deflates a little.
The man tosses a five and two ones on the table, then a dime and three pennies.
Exact change. He stands, placing an old black-and-white houndstooth fedora on top of his head before he turns for the door.
“Hey!” I call after him, “Are you tipping or not?”
“I didn’t finish my dinner. Ain’t nothin’ to tip, young lady.”
“We’ve gotta eat around here!” I shriek. He’s the only one in the restaurant right now, so it only serves to rattle the dusty blinds that hang over the windows. “You old bastard!”
The tip wouldn’t have been mine. It would have been Sarah’s, if she hadn’t forgotten about him in favor of clean dishes. But still, she’s been buying her own toothpaste lately. If she doesn’t get tipped because of my mouth—and the loss of his dinner—I won’t forgive myself for the rest of the night.
“Here’s your tip, sweetheart—” he says with a flourish. “Do something about that attitude.”
I throw him a short, pudgy middle finger. The sleigh bells clattering against the glass are a cry for help when the front door crashes back into the frame, and the man disappears into his crusty old Buick.
“His check was, what, seven bucks? Eight? It doesn’t matter.” Sarah turns to lean against the counter, frowning. “I’m gonna live another day without a dollar-fifty.”
The frustration scatters over my skin like electricity. “It’s the principle of the matter—”
“‘The principle of the matter’ doesn’t matter,” Sarah says. Her palms are warm and moist when she presses them against my cheeks, and she says it again: “The principle. Of the matter. Doesn’t matter.”
This isn’t just about the old man with the money. I know what she’s saying to me: