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“No one gives a shit about you, bird. No one is going to help you. No one is going to dare go against me. Now sit like a good girl and eat the fucking apple,” I order.
She gives me the tiniest nod; her face still fear-stricken as I slowly remove the knife from her throat. She breathes a sigh of relief, and her shoulders sag in defeat as she reaches for the apple with a trembling hand. Her shaking fingers wrap around the fruit, and she brings it to her mouth to take a bite.
“Good girl,” I praise while I slide my knife back into my boot.
“You’re insane,” she mumbles in between bites. I watch her chew the apple.
“I know, and you would do well to remember that,” I say, enjoying the power I hold over her. A power I intend to abuse over and over again.
7
WREN
“We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.” Maya is a lot more confident than I am. She jumps out of her car and reaches into the backseat to pull out a bucket full of all kinds of things we found online when we searched how to get spray paint off a car without damaging the finish too much. And there I was, already worrying because the car was old and falling apart. I didn’t know it could get worse. Shouldn’t I know by now that things can always get worse?
Finding Maya obviously was meant to be. She doesn’t owe me anything, but as soon as she saw the paint job somebody gave my car, she came up with a plan and put it in motion. She empties everything out of the bucket, then pours in two of the bottles of water we bought. As I watch, she adds soap and drops two sponges inside.
“What happens if it doesn’t work?” I’m not even really talking to her. With all these thoughts bouncing around in my head, it’s like my skull is going to crack if I don’t let some of it out.
She scoffs at the question. “It’ll work.” I want to believe her as we get started soaping up the red S.
“We just have to be patient,” she says. “I wish I could’ve seen who did this. Who do these people think they are? Somebody needs to make them pay.”
“I think so, too,” I agree. Is it making a difference? I can’t quite tell, and I don’t want to trick myself into believing it. Maybe it’s helping, but only a tiny bit.
She glances at me and looks almost guilty. “Do you think it’s because of what Briggs did? When he told everybody you… blew him?” Then she gags like the idea makes her sick, and for the first time, I can think back on the whole thing and laugh a little. Not that it does anything to take away the memory of how scared I was—and how excited that made him.
“That, and everybody assuming I’m just like my mom.” I rub the paint harder, gritting my teeth, but it’s not working. “I think this is hopeless.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.” She pours a bottle of water over the suds to rinse them away. “That’s fine. It was only plan A.”
No way am I going to be able to keep going with this if I don’t ask the question that’s on my mind. “You don’t think I did it, do you?” I know what she’s going to say, but I need to hear it.
At first, she only laughs it off. When I don’t laugh, she must figure out I’m serious. Her head tips to the side and her eyes narrow before she murmurs, “How can you even ask that question? And not only because your lips didn’t, like, fall off. You know they would if you ever had to put them anywhere near his dick.”
The idea makes my chest go tight. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“But for real,” she adds. “You wouldn’t do something like that.”
“You don’t really know me,” I remind her.
“I know you well enough.” She pulls out a bottle of nail polish remover and sprinkles a little on a handful of paper towels. “Let’s see how this works.”
“Go slow,” I warn. “Just in case it takes off too much.”
“It doesn’t seem like it’s… oh. Wait.” She pulls her hand away, wincing, and I know why when I look at the paper towels. It’s not only the red that’s coming off. It’s the white paint underneath it.
Her eyes are wide when she looks at me. “I’m so sorry. But it’s only a tiny bit.”
“This is hopeless. Anything we use is going to take off all the paint. It’s not like there’s something smart enough to strip one paint and not the one under it. If there is, I couldn’t afford it.”
I want to cry. It would be one thing if I really was a slut—and even then, there wouldn’t be any excuse for this.
Maya’s still trying to keep a happy face, but her smile is getting tighter. More like she’s grinding her teeth together. “We can try something else.” But I hear it in her voice, how she doesn’t really believe this is going to turn out well. She was only faking it for my sake.
“You know what? Screw it.”
“What do you mean?”
