Page 135 of Play Nice

I’m not totally sure. Who would I be without my scars? Who would my sisters be?

We sit here, our faces swollen, covered in scrapes and bruises, wounds that will heal but won’t disappear. But I think we’re beautiful now, wearing the evidence of our pain. No one can deny it exists.

My scars are my vindication. We shouldn’t need them to prove anything, but that’s the world we live in. The world Mom tried to prepare us for.

“What do you think Mom would say if she could see us now?” I ask.

“About us at McDonald’s?” Daphne asks.

“No,” I say. “Just…us. As we are.”

“I don’t know,” Daffy says. “I don’t know.”

“Me either,” Leda says.

“I think”—I hesitate—“I think it’s that. Everything we’ll never know because now she’s gone. She’s gone.”

There’s quiet as the unknowns swim in the oceans between us.

A few minutes pass; then Leda asks, “That guy you were talking to in the street. Is that the neighbor?”

“Yeah. Austin.”

“He’s cute!” she says. “You should date him.”

“He’s too good for me. Too pure of heart,” I say. “What if I destroy him?”

“Why don’t you just be nice,” Leda says. “What if you tried that for a change?”

“I could try. Turn over a new leaf.”

“Maybe this could be a new beginning. For all of us,” Daphne says, tapping her soda cup with a plastic knife.

Leda reaches for my McFlurry. She spoons some into her mouth. “Fresh start.”

“I love you two. With a cherry on top.”

“Love you, Cli,” Daphne says, and I know she means it, just like she meant it when she said she hated me.

I reach up to my neck to play with my charm, forgetting for a second it’s no longer there. Forgetting that there’s some piece of me back at the house and always will be.

Remembering is not always a light shone into darkness. Sometimes it’s a claw reaching out and dragging you back.

—

There’s the promise of a pretty morning, the sun teasing its grand entrance with pink phosphorescence. The view from Daphne’s balcony is really something, and I for sure should be sleeping, but I want to see it. The morning. The light coming through the trees, turning the Hudson to glitter.

“Here,” Aunt Helen says, stepping outside and handing me a giant ceramic mug steaming with hot coffee, the smell of it lush and nutty.

“Thank you. Daffy still asleep?”

She nods, then takes a cigarette out from behind her ear and lights it. Her hair is big and frizzy, and she wears a white ribbed long-sleeve T-shirt, silk pajama pants, slippers, and a pair of thick dark-rimmed glasses. Even unkempt, there’s a glamour about her I admire.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” I tell her, because I know now that my heart is a soft thing. What’s the point in pretending it isn’t?

She exhales smoke out of the side of her mouth. “I would prefer it if the next time we see each other, it not to be under such grim circumstances.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”