Brutal Precious (Lovely Vicious #3) (5 page)

All of Sophia’s twisted, angry faces compound in my mind.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“But you said she was your friend.”

“Yeah, but – I hurt her. I did things to hurt her.”

“On purpose?”

My breath catches before I can say yes. I mull over my kiss with Jack. Our war. The laughter and the righteous anger and the tender, soft moments. The memories sting, like lemon juice in a papercut.

“N-No. I was trying…to help?”

Gran raises a thin eyebrow. I shake my head.

“That’s how it was at first. I was trying to help Kayla. But then…but then I started to really like him. I was hurting Sophia by liking him. Every second I liked him was more hurt to her. S-So. I take it back. I wasn’t trying to help. I was being selfish.”

“It sounds like you were trying to be happy with this boy.”

I scoff. “But that hurt her. Us, we hurt her a lot. I got between them. I – she probably felt like she had nothing left, with him moving on. So she…she...”

The white dress on the green lawn flashes in my mind. Sophia’s blue eyes, empty, her hair like a banner of cornsilk and moonlight, caked with blood where her head met the ground. The tiny silver bracelet that said Tallie glinting back at me.

She’d lost everything. And I took the last person in her life from her. I did it without even thinking, without even considering how it might hurt her. I just barreled ahead and did what I wanted to because I was selfish. Because I wanted to be happy.

Because I wanted love when I knew I didn’t deserve it.

And now, I’ll never deserve it.

I am the evil thing.

I am the darkest dragon who ate the saddest princess.

My thoughts are rudely interrupted by Gran’s finger flicking my forehead.

“I can hear the cogs in your brain turning. Don’t go down that road. That’s arrogant. You think too much of yourself, and your effect on people. If she went and killed herself she did it because her life was miserable, and she’d thought about it for ages, not because you did one little thing.”

“But I contributed. I –”

Gran leans back in her bed and huffs, pulling the cover over her. “I’m not gonna argue with you when you’re all wrapped up in self-pity, you hear? Come back when you’re thinking clearly. I wanna talk to my granddaughter, not a silly martyr who’s trying to take all the blame.”

I go quiet. Gran must realize how rare an occasion this is, because she sighs.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. I know it’s hard. But you’re making it harder on yourself.” She leans up and kisses me on the cheek. “Come back at nine. The nurse lights the fire then.”

A small, grim smile tugs at my lips.

The drive home is all dark roads and a pale, gold-white gibbous moon hammocking the horizon. The same color as Sophia’s hair. I hear her voice clearly in my head.

‘You tried to help. You tried to help, and for that I can never thank you enough.’

I drive back to the nursing home at nine, and Gran and I park our butts in lawn chairs, with sunglasses and lemonade, and wait for nine o’ clock.

And nine comes, and the chimney spews fireworks – oranges and blues and greens incinerating the clouds. Gran laughs and toasts the sky – toasts her dead friend. I lean back in the chair and smile.

It’s good to be alive.

3 Years

44 Weeks

6 Days

Sometimes when life kicks you in the ass, you have to kick it back.

In the nuts.

With steel-toed boots.

Essentially, if someone, anyone, kicks you, it is very mature to take the high-road and not kick them back. But it’s not fun. And I’m all about fun. One hundred percent fun. One fundred percent.

I smirk at my own pun. One pundred percent. My father groaning across the breakfast table is the only indication that I’ve been thinking out loud for the past five minutes.

“Isis, eat your food,” He pleads.

“No, Dad, I gotta go,” I stand up quickly from my chair. The twins pelt each other with oatmeal.

“You’ll sit down and eat your breakfast with the rest of us, Isis, or so help me –”

“Where are you going?” Kelly interrupts him and smiles sweetly at me.

“Home.”

Kelly’s eyes light up at the prospect. Dad’s darken.

“Isis, your ticket doesn’t have you going back until the 30th –”

“Dad,” I whine. “My friend died and I gotta go kick life in the nuts.”

“We’re all going to die,” One of the twins pauses in her oatmeal-throwing to say, her bright blonde braids contrasting her blue eyes as she blinks, once.

“Exactly!” I motion at her. “See, Dad? She gets it!”

Dad’s face turns red in his about-to-explode manner, when Kelly grabs his arm and coos.

“Oh, darling, she must be so eager to start college. Remember when we were that age? I was so excited to leave the house and get on with my life! She’s just feeling that good old independence bug. Delta loves me – I’m a gold flier. They’ll let me change the date for nothing.”

Dad lets out a frustrated sigh, his red face going with it. “Aren’t you – aren’t you happy here? This was supposed to be your summer vacation, with me. I haven’t seen you in two years, Isis. Two years.”

“I’m having loads of fun here,” I lie vigorously. “And I’m gonna miss you.” Another lie. I don’t even know you. “I’m just, you know. Like Kelly said. I’m ready to go!”

Dad eyes me over his glasses, and after what feels like eternity, sighs. Kelly smiles. I’ve won. As I pack my bags, I realize there’s really nothing for me here except borrowed BMWs, and a family that was never really mine.
 
And it took me seventeen years to figure that out.

‘You really are slow, aren’t you?’

The voice echoes, so clear I’d swear Jack was standing nearby. But there’s no one there. A lopsided picture of Kelly and Dad stares at me through the open doorway. There are no pictures of me anywhere in the house, not even as a kid.

I’m surrounded by people here, but I’m completely alone.

I snap my suitcase shut and sit on it.

I cry a little at the airport two days later. Dad doesn’t cry at all. This tells me everything I need to know about everything I never wanted to know. The airplane takes off and I helpfully throw peanuts at the bald guy in front of me who won’t stop farting. The stewardess thanks me with her eyes but then he gets up and goes to the bathroom and leaves the door open and we perish. For two hours.

Mom is waiting for me at baggage claim. I smell like man-farts but she hugs me anyway and that’s how I know I’m not alone anymore.

***

Packing for college is like packing for war. You’re not coming back. You don’t know what’s out there. There’s a chance you may die (exams) and/or suffer life-changing injuries (hangovers, STDs). And if you do come back, you’re lucky. But the enemy territory is just begging to be explored, and I’ve gotten all the training I need from basic (high school). I’ll be okay.

I can’t fit Ms. Muffin into my suitcase.

I’m not going to be okay.

Mom hears my wails of distress and comes like a tired hound to the slaughter.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

“Everything is over forever!” I throw myself into my pillows. Mom waits patiently for a translation. I throw my finger towards Ms. Muffin, half-hanging out of the bursting suitcase.

“Isis, she’s a doll,” Mom sighs. “You’re going to college. Maybe it’s time to get rid of her.”

I sit bolt upright, my eyes as big as saucers and my mouth as big as a flying saucer. Mom corrects herself.

“Okay, okay. Ms. Muffin stays. But keep in mind; first impressions are everything, and the only people Ms. Muffin will impress are six-year-olds.”

“Precisely, madre. I don’t want to be friends with people who aren’t six. At heart. Only at heart. Because it’s also fun to legally drive.”

Mom shakes her head, laughing a little, and goes back downstairs to her pancakes.

I sneak into her bathroom with all the grace of an anime ninja and check her pill stock. She’s full up – antidepressants, mostly. It worries me because they make people kill themselves. But it also doesn’t worry me, because they stop people from killing themselves. It’s the shittiest fifty-fifty gamble in the world, but it’s all we have. It’s all that’ll keep Mom safe while I’m gone.

“What are you doing, Isis?”

I immediately slam the mirror shut. “Checking for rats! And mold. Both of which kill people. Did you know rats can leap over ten feet horizontally? And they always aim for the jugular.”

Mom tenses, her lips pursing like she’s going to chastise me, but then she moves in, enveloping me in her arms. Arms that are a little thicker than they used to be.

“I’ll be alright, sweetie,” She murmurs into my fading purple-streaked hair. “It’s okay. It’s okay to stop worrying, now.”

“I can’t,” I say. “If I stop, something bad will happen. If I stop I won’t see it coming, I won’t pay attention, and something will happen to you –”

Mom’s grip tightens. “You’ve been so strong for me, for so long. Thank you.”

I feel a familiar prickle in my eye and promptly deny it exit. Mom holds me at arm’s length, looking me up and down as she strokes my cheek.

“And now, it’s time for you to be strong for yourself. Not me. Not anyone. No one else but you.”

I laugh, but it’s watery. “I’m not – I’m not so good at that.”

She smiles, eyes like gray mirrors full of love. “Then it’s time to learn.”
  

In the very back of my closet, I find the pink blouse Kelly sent me. But it's more than that, now. It's the pink blouse Jack said I was - I was - I can't even bring myself to say it, and how lame is that, that I can't even say a word? Mouths are meant for saying words and I have one, and I know words, but this one is hard. This one means something so it's hard.

In this pink blouse, someone called me beautiful for the first time. Someone I respected. Respect. Someone I loved.

Love.

Love?

I shake my head and jam the blouse into the farthest reaches of my suitcase. You never know when you'll need a new curtain. Or a toilet rag.

Mom helps me load stuff in the car. I’ve got my trusty blue suitcase and my beat-up backpack from high school. High school. Hi, school. Bye, school. I shiver a little as I realize I'm not in it anymore. I'm officially out. Half of me wants to drink nineteen redbulls and dance the motherfucking hokey pokey nonstop for twenty four hours, and the other part of me wants to crawl back into school, wrap it around me like a security blanket and never come back out. I settle for rolling on the lawn and moaning with dread like a grubby caterpillar refusing to get out of his cocoon.

Kayla pulls into our driveway just as Mom loads the last bag. I jump up from the lawn and rush over. She’s right on time for our dinner date. Our last, and final, farewell dinner date. She gets out of the car in a blindingly beautiful white dress and sandals, her dark hair combed out to chocolate sheet-like perfection. She greets my mom with the graciousness of seven French queens, and drags me into her car with the strength of seven Viking warriors. When we’re on the road, she huffs.

“Is the stuff in the trunk really all you’re bringing? Romani gypsies travel with more stuff than you!”

“Ah,” I raise a sage finger. “But Romani gypsies don’t have an entire suitcase pocket devoted to Haribo gummy bears.”

Kayla rolls her eyes. "You're so nuts."
 

"I prefer gummies to nuts."

"Oh do you?" Kayla arches her brow in that terribly cheesy double entendre way and I suppress the urge to pluck it off her face. Her face is a work of art, cheesy eyebrow or no. I don't ruin art. Except when I do. And then I get yelled at.

"Anyway," I say. "This is the last time we'll see each other until Christmas Break, so we better go to a gay bar or something equally entertaining yet memorable."

Kayla grins, and merges onto the highway. "I know just the place."

I recognize the street before I do the restaurant. The Red Fern looms before us. The same place I arranged Jack and Kayla's first date. The one I stalked them at. But Kayla doesn't know that, of course. She picks a booth by the window and we settle in, her ordering ice tea and me a root beer.

"If we were in Europe, we'd be able to order wine," Kayla sighs dreamily. "God, they have it so good there."

I frown, remembering the ticket Jack left me. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

"Oh yeah. Everybody loves the black plague."

"That was centuries ago, Isis. No one has the black plague anymore."

"The emos of the world beg to differ."

Kayla rolls her eyes and orders spring rolls for us to split. I look around nervously at the decor. The same colorful birds of paradise linger in the vases, and the crystal light fixtures look like seaweed suspended in ice.