Page 15 of No Saint
“Are you painting your toes…pink?” she asked around a mouthful, hand already digging into the box for another.
I put the brush back in the bottle of polish I’d stolen from the bathroom. Definitely hers. Monroe wouldn’t be seen dead wearing pink. “Ten out of ten for observation, Cassie.”
“Had to check that I wasn’t hallucinating.” She shoved more cereal in her mouth. “Are you having some kind of wannabe cheerleader crisis I should know about?”
“God no. I’m making my feet look…appealing?” That sounded weird. “Girlie.” The word had me wrinkling my nose, but I figured that was the aesthetic I needed to go for.
“Oh, are we doing a makeover?” She sounded far too excited about that prospect. Glaring at her, I took my phone, pulled up my Lonely Fans account, and handed it to her.
Three subscribers.
That was all I had.
Fifteen bucks a month.
When I’d seen a video about a girl making ten grand a month selling pictures of her feet, I hadn’t exactly expected the same success, but come on. Fifteen bucks?
“I figured since the money from Rogue’s drugs has bought me a little time, I could, you know, work on my content.”
Monroe and I had joked about foot pictures for years, but I was actually doing it. I was neck deep in desperation, dignity and all.
Cassie slowly chewed her cereal while she stared at the screen. Her attention drifted to my poorly painted toes. “You should have filmed yourself painting your toes. One of the girls in my sociology class is an influencer or something. Apparently, guys ask to buy her underwear. One offered her twenty bucks for a video of her getting a pedicure.” She lifted her brows. “Weird, right?”
I didn’t know if weird was the right word, but too good, or perhaps too easy, to be true. What did I have to lose, though? “I can take it off.”
“It looks like a five-year-old did it anyway.” Rude. She put her bowl on the table. “There’s remover in the bathroom. And you need a good background.”
I shoved off the couch, hobbling down the hall with my wet toes. When I came out of the bathroom, she had the white, fluffy blanket from her bed spread out across the floor. Her desk lamp beside it. “You film, I’ll paint.”
Good friends stole with you, but great friends helped you make videos of your feet for strangers to jerk off over.
I dumped the remover onto a cotton ball and returned my toes to their usual neglected state.
Cassie sat on the floor in front of me and picked up the bottle of cotton candy-pink polish. “We’re going to get you at least ten new subscribers.”
I pulled the camera up on my phone and filmed.
At five bucks a month, even ten subscribers weren’t going to solve all my problems, but I’d take it.
Besides, my moral scale had become somewhat of a sliding one since Dad had fallen ill. I used to reprimand Wolf for shoplifting. He would say that morals were a privilege. I’d argued that they were a choice, but how wrong I’d been, and, yeah, privileged.
At the thought of Wolf and his criminal wisdom, my mood soured.You’re not my charity case anymore…Days later, it still stung. I’d tried to convince myself that his words were no more than a whisper from a ghost. But that was the thing about lying to myself. Deep down, I knew the truth. And it hurt. A lot.
Cassie had just finished my toes when my phone rang in my hand, pausing the video.
My stomach sank when I saw my mom’s name flash across the screen. Partly because it felt like she somehow knew what I was doing, but mainly, it was rarely good news when she called these days. Every time she called, she sounded upset—understandably—and I got horrible anxiety. I felt ashamed of myself for not wanting to talk to her, for wishing she wouldn’t burden me with more bad news.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Cassie said, then took her cereal back to her room. And there it was, the break-up playlist.
Wailing lyrics hummed through the apartment as I answered the call.
“Hey, Mom. Is Dad okay?” It was always the first thing I asked. Like I wanted to get it out of the way and either justify my tightening chest or ease it.
“He’s the same, honey.” Because they couldn’t afford the tests to diagnose him properly.
“Okay. Good.” It wasn’t good, it just wasn’t bad. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. You won’t believe what happened today. An anonymous donor paid off some of our mortgage debt.” Her voice broke. “So, we won’t lose the house.”
