Ally belts out a laugh. “I’ll catch you at school tomorrow, where there will be very few bitches, I promise.” She writes something down on a napkin and slides it toward me. “Call me when you’re free, and we’ll get together.”
It takes another few minutes for my coffee, and all the while, I inspect Molly from afar. She’s stunning with her dark blond hair, her pale smooth skin—gorgeous doe eyes. My heart breaks seeing her back shudder as she sheds her not-so-silent tears.
I take up my drink and make my way over, nervous at the prospect of crashing her tear fest but totally dying to meet her and hopefully make her feel better.
“You mind?” I point down at the empty seat beside her—half afraid she’ll bolt now that I’m here.
“Nope.” She moans and drops the wad of tissues to the table like she’s making a statement. Her heavy-scented perfume creates a toxic cloud in the vicinity, sandalwood mixed with unripe fruit, something just this side of glorified body odor. Maybe it’s not people upsetting her. Maybe it’s the fragrance offense she’s committing.
“I’m Kendall,” I offer. “I’m actually staying with your brother.” She looks much prettier up close, and here I thought that was impossible. “Is everything okay?”
“Brayden Holmes is a dick.” She announces it like a fact, and her cheeks depress with an impression of a smile.
“Boy trouble,” I say it mostly to myself. If it were pissy girls I could’ve given her sound advice, all of which I’ve thought long and hard about but never truly implemented. But people with hanging appendages were involved, and seeing that I’ve never handed my heart to anyone on a silver platter, I don’t have the first clue how to help her.
“It’s over, so there’s really not a problem.” She spits it out with a viral level of angst reserved for high school girls the world over. And judging by her visceral reaction, it is so not over.
“Can I ask what happened?” I can’t help but feel I’ve just dived in over my head. She probably caught him looking at someone, and now she’s heartbroken.
“He tricked me into sleeping with him, then dumped me for some slut named Tracy Schaffer.”
“Holy shit!” I bounce back in my seat. “We need to tell Cruise. He needs to beat the living crap out this… this… Brayden person.” I’m panicked at the thought of someone taking advantage of his little sister like that. And I had no idea we were going “all the way” in our conversation or I may have opted to forgo the meet and greet for another time, like after she clawed “Brayden’s” eyes out and was staring down the barrel of a prison sentence. No wait. Preventative measures need to be taken to ensure neither she nor Cruise land behind bars. Once cooler heads prevail, I’m sure we’ll think up a way to inflict bodily harm to the jackass without leaving forensic evidence behind.
She snatches my wrist so quick she nearly knocks my coffee off the table. “There’s no way in hell we’re telling Cruise anything.” She grits it through her teeth. “He’ll know what a loser I am, and then he’ll tell my mom, and they’ll both kill me.” She heaves into a spontaneous sob, and for a second, I wonder if it’s all an act.
“Of course they’re not going to kill you.” They are so going to kill her. “Did you use protection?”
“I’m on the pill.” Her eyes enlarge as I writhe in front of her.
“You’re on the pill?” I’m horrified by this. There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep all these secrets from Cruise.
“Yup. In fact, I just ran out. You think you can give me a ride to the free clinic? It’s all the way downtown and I’ll probably freeze if I try to hoof it.”
“I…” Fuck. Should I be giving her a ride? “I guess.”
I hope to God it’s me Cruise doesn’t kill.
The Carrington free-clinic is situated in the seediest part of the downtown district. Two derelicts seek shelter in the alcove of the entry, and one of them has decided to spell his name on the wall with a creative spray of urine. I’m quick to usher Molly through—ready and willing to implement my ninja moves should he decide to get creative in other ways with the disgusting hose in question.
We land inside and I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
The interior is a dingy grey, the color of dead skin. A row of plants on the counter have all wilted to yellow wisps as the sick and the desperate for birth control gather en masse in the tiny Petri dish of a room. I’m sure sixteen different strains of the flu are merging in our lungs as we step deeper into the hotbed of infestation.