“Tell me more,” she said.
The back of my throat felt like tar.
“Daisy, don’t,” Jing said under her breath. Something shifted in her shoulders. “Just don’t.”
“No. It’s fine.” I jammed my tongue against my gums. “My mom’s dead. Julian is mom’s brother. He and his husband took me in.”
A couple in a convertible was hacked to pieces, and their awful, campy shrieking echoed through the room. There wasn’t any other sound. The bedroom was a vacuum. I felt Daisy’s breath rustle the wispies on the back of my neck, but I couldn’t hear her breathing. Her nose was needle-close to my skull. Daisy’s body ran a few degrees warmer than mine, and it radiated like a faint young sun, faint but unmistakable down my back and around my sides.
She was waiting for something. I wasn’t sure what.
“Must be something in the weather,” Daisy said. “My mom croaked, too. She’s under that smug angel in the boneyard on Hickory Street. The one with all the garlands and Annabel Lee.” Her voice was hushed, just loud enough that I’d hear her. There was a crookedness in her tone, something sharp and red and raw. I recognized that tone of voice. It sounded a lot like mine.
My mouth twisted upward. It wasn’t out of mirth. “We should start a club.”
She extended her arms, crossed them over my sternum and twined them around my ribs. Her body burned. It let off a strange, violent energy, something that jolted through my bones like a fever. Daisy’s arms were a bit like witchcraft. It was almost too warm to breathe.
“You’re nervous,” she whispered. “Don’t be. I just decided not to bite.” Then she released me. Cold air flooded my pores, and Daisy gave the room a drawn-out yawn. “I don’t like these braids.” Lazy, cocky. “I’m redoing them. Does anyone have any gum?”
No one had any gum.
Daisy clicked her tongue. Cracked her knuckles. She started unraveling the undoubtedly perfect braids she had just finished. I didn’t say anything to contradict her.
Yates chanced a glance in my direction. “Which lunch period do you have?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheeks. “C.” The suckiest one, naturally. “Why?”
“Who do you usually sit with?”
Fucking, I sat with nobody, that’s who. Just me and myself by the stage. Who the hell was there to sit with, anyway? There were the Drama kids, but we weren’t friends-friends even when we did hang out. I hadn’t been forgiven by most of actors for being given an understudy part despite being an oh-so lowly crew kid. One of only two crew kids, to be specific, and the only one who can even lift the planks of wood when we’re building sets. Also, there was still beef over the time when I might’ve gotten into a physical altercation with the stage manager. The person I was the closest to was Mickey-Dick (technically Michael Richardson), who I was friends with in a class-partner way but not a hanging-out-after-school way. He was still weird about the fact that I might’ve fooled around with his ex-girlfriend at the world’s most terrible improv camp last summer. Not that there are . . . like, great improv camps. And they weren’t even together at the time! Anyway, the point is that none of them had any interest in sitting with me, and I didn’t particularly covet them, either. “I move around,” I said. “Why d’you ask?”
“We have C lunch, too.” Yates gave me a little nod. “So, you should sit with us, if you want.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about it.” I tangled my fists in the carpet. The fur was about the same consistency of a Valentine’s Day bear, cheap and sugary. Something told me that if I gave it a good tug, it’d come out by the bushel. I fought the urge.
“Think about it? Excuse me, Sideways, but did I just hear you say you’ll think about it?” You would’ve thought I’d called Daisy every slur in the book, the way she bristled. Her voice was nasal, accusatory. I didn’t have to see the snarl to feel it.
The air knocked out of my lungs.
Daisy weighed substantially more than she looked. She slammed me down face first, and she rolled me over before she pinned me. Her fringe swung with momentum. Daisy broke into a grin, and she braced her knee against my diaphragm, leered down over my face. “You have to sit with us. You can’t curse a fuckboy with us and share a sob story without being one of us, Sideways Pike. You ain’t got a choice.”
My stomach split its seams. I bucked, grabbed her around the middle and tossed her on the rug beside me. She hit the floor with an oof. She flashed a grin.
“Y’all should’ve warned me that friendship with you three was mandatory. Is there a contract? Are there terms and conditions for me to reckon with?”
“Yeah. Rule one: I always win play fights.” Daisy clambered back on top of me, moved like she was going to shoulder check my neck. I broke into a laugh, but my laugh flatlined before the sound could leave my mouth. Daisy’s body crushed against mine. Her ribs poked my ribs. She made a sound like a squeak toy underfoot.
A slender, bracelet-bound wrist flopped by the side of my face.
Yates. The extra weight was Yates.
The air squished out of my lungs.
“Jesus,” I wheezed. I jerked one of my arms out from under Daisy’s stomach and reached out to absently claw at the carpet, but it was damn clear where the leverage was here. The leverage was not with me. I couldn’t toss them off. A sloppy smile slapped across my face. “Mercy. Fucking have mercy. Yates. Daisy. I’m dying.”
“Yeah, guys. You heard the woman. She’s dying.” Jing, out of the corner of my eye, cast her arms behind her head and kicked her feet up on the pile, suave as a pinup at a tropical resort. Give her a Bloody Mary and beach towel and she’d be perfect. She pursed her lips into a faux smile.
Laughing hurt. Goddamn, did I hurt.
Brightly, from the corner of a table, warbled Morrissey.
That’d be my ringtone.
“Off,” I moaned, wriggling under the triple girl weight. “That’s my phone! Off. Daisy, damn it . . .”
Jing reached one of her long arms over to my phone and plucked it up. She nonchalantly tapped at the screen, and the ringing stopped. She pressed it to her ear.
She’d guessed my password.
I was as horrified as I was impressed.
“Hi. Eloise can’t come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?” Jing twirled a lock of hair around her finger. She spoke with the high, over-polite timbre of a girly receptionist, and her expression twisted into something grotesque. Smug bastard. I contemplated punching her squarely in the neck. Lucky for her, I couldn’t presently move my arms.
Muffled surprise from the other end. I couldn’t make out the words.
“Oh! One second.” Jing cradled my phone against her heart and gave me her best patronizing whisper: “Sideways, it’s your father.”
Fuck. That could be either really good or really bad. “Which father?” I hissed between my teeth.
She returned the phone to her cheek. “Right. Which father?” She paused, nodded, then cleared her throat and resumed her previous pose, iPhone to sternum, lashes fluttering like a bird mid-flight. “It’s Julian.”
Shit.
Jing looked me in the face and wordlessly understood. Her eyes stretched wide. She pressed my phone to my cheek and I coughed once, scrambled to hook my hand around the quickly slipping phone.