Page 134 of Play Nice

It’s Austin. He stands in the middle of the cul-de-sac in his sweatpants and tank top and gold chain.

“Shit! Your face,” he says as I walk toward him.

“You need to work on your sweet talk,” I say.

He runs to me, takes a good look. “Fractured. What happened? I heard the sirens.”

“That is what they’re for. That’s their whole thing.”

He drops his gaze to his shoes. His Vans.

I reach out and pull one of his curls straight. His hair isn’t as springy as mine, but there’s still some satisfaction in it. In touching him again. “I’m sorry. For what I said the other night. You didn’t deserve it. Any of it.”

“No,” he says, “I didn’t.”

“If it helps, I think karma is on your side,” I say, pointing to my massacred face.

“It does, kind of,” he says, laughing a little. A good laugh. A laugh that erases the memory of all other laughs. For a moment. “Hey. Listen…”

“Cli?” Leda calls. She stands next to Daphne and a somber police officer, looking extra tense.

“I should go. I don’t want to keep law enforcement waiting. I know cops are known for their patience, but I pride myself on my manners.”

“Right, right,” he says. “Well…”

“Austin. Would you believe me if I told you the demon was real?” I ask, because I have nothing left to lose.

He takes a beat, runs his hands through his hair. “Um, yeah. I would. I never wanted to say anything, but it’s creepy as shit in there.”

Wow. I love him. I love him. “Maybe I can take you to the diner sometime. We can get disco fries and I can tell you all about it.”

“You know how I feel about disco fries.”

I give him a smile and a wink, even though it hurts.

—

After hours of statements and medical attention, my sisters and I sit in profound silence at a corner table in a particularly grimy McDonald’s.

I dip a fry into my McFlurry. All I taste is the stubborn lingering of blood.

Daphne opens a packet of honey for her McNuggets.

“That’s honey. Not honey mustard,” Leda says, stabbing at a salad.

“I know,” Daphne says. “I like honey.”

“You dip your chicken in honey?” Leda asks, horrified.

It’s like nothing ever happened. It’s like nothing’s different, even though it is. The things that were said and done in that house cannot be unsaid or undone.

The words, the violence, the ugliness, the fear, the sadness, the hurt—all that will continue to make a home inside us, even if we relegate it to the attic, and it lives cramped among the cobwebs, emerging sometimes in our sleep or causing chaos in our waking lives, an invisible hand pulling the strings, a shadow at the corners of our eyes.

I look down at the scar on my forearm. It looks back at me.

I remember flirting with Ethan at Veronica’s launch party. Lucky to live with scars, I said.

And he said, Better to live without.