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“What?” Brad chimes in.
“The Nookie!”
“What?”
They sing the chorus back and forth as Wes leans over and whispers in my ear, “I am not fucking playing Limp Bizkit.”
I giggle as Tiny Tim comes shuffling out of a dark second-story shop, holding his banjo over his head. “Did somebody say nookie?”
“Wes is trying to figure out my favorite song,” I call over to them.
“She looks like a Taylor Swift girl to me,” Tiny teases, taking a seat a few rows above Brangelina.
Wes looks back at me and raises an eyebrow. “You a Swiftie?”
I shrug, but before I can give him an answer, I notice a curvy silhouette stalking into the atrium from the hallway to the left—the one I never go down—shrouded in a cloud of smoke.
“Go ahead, Surfer Boy,” Q calls out, her voice slurry and slow as she snaps her fingers in our direction. “Play me some T. Swift.”
Wes glances down at me with hard eyes. The sharp line of his jaw flexes in the glow of the candles.
“You want me to play nice?” he whispers. The implication is clear.
You want to keep living here, or can I be a dick?
“No,” I say, his question giving me an evil idea. “I want you to play ‘Mean.’”
Wes smirks. “The song?”
I nod.
“You sure?”
I nod.
“All right, but you gotta sing it.”
“What? No. Wes—”
“Yes.” He lifts his thumb and slides it beneath the gash on my cheek, letting me know that he knows exactly who put it there. “You sing it.”
“But … what if I don’t know the words?”
“Everybody knows the words.”
Before I can argue anymore, Wes’s fingers land on the strings like he’s played the song a hundred times, and the “Mean” train leaves the station. I feel my chest constrict as I glance over at Q, who is now sitting on the bottom stair of the escalator, glaring at me.
When it comes time for me to sing the first line, I choke, but Wes just plays the melody again, this time murmuring the lyrics under his breath. I almost go for it, but it’s not until the third try that the words actually come out of my mouth.
They’re quiet at first as I tell Q that she’s a bully who enjoys picking on people weaker than her.
A little louder when I tell her that she has a voice like nails on a chalkboard.
And by the time we get to the chorus, I’m declaring—not to her, but to myself—that one day, I’m gonna leave this place, and all she’s ever gonna be is mean.
“Yeeeeee-haw!” Tiny calls out as he joins in on his banjo, walking down the escalator stairs and right past Q, who takes a puff from her bowl and tries to act oblivious.
Brangelina stands up, arm in arm, and sways back and forth as they help me sing the second verse about how I walk with my head down because she’s always pointing out my flaws.
