Page 55 of Make Me Pretty
“I have a feeling I’m going to regret this.”
My cackle follows us through the shadows.
“There. Perfect.”My smile mimics the one painted before me.
“He’s gonna kill you. He is literally going murder you. Probably in your sleep. Since you live in thesame fucking house!” Lance is bordering on the edges of panic. I pat his shoulder, smearing a streak of pink spray paint over his dark coat.
I click my tongue. “Sorry about that.” I swipe at the wet paint, only sufficing to smear it more, so I drop my arm to stare down at the absolutemasterpieceI created for Peris. “Why areyouso worried about what Peris does to me?”
“Because you’re my friend,” Lance responds easily, like it’s obvious. His answer warms my stomach, the unfamiliar sensation fluttering around inside me. I squirm against it, shifting on my feet.
“Well… Cool, then.”Wow, so eloquent, Abel. For fuck’s sake.
“I don’t know what you do to him, but you really seem to irritate him.”
With one last glance at Peris’s decorated parking spot, I shove the now-empty spray paint cans back in my bag. Lance starts in the direction of his house, so I follow behind, still readily avoiding the cracks in the asphalt.
“How do you mean?”
“I dunno. Just that he’s… rude to you, I guess. He’s always been a bit of an asshole, but nothing like when you’re around, so it’s just weird.”
“Hmm.” I let the vibration settle on my tongue as I chew over my response. “Sometimes, all it comes down to is finally meetingsomeone who shares your madness.” I didn’t mean to say that out loud, let alone to another person, but my tongue is heavy, and my mind is somewhere a few feet above my body. But now, it’s out there, percolating in the cold, autumn air, shrouded by a darkness I feel on an intimate level.
“Madness?” Lance parrots. I jolt when I step down from the curb, back on the concrete of a side street. Lance doesn’t lose stride, even as I fall behind.
I swallow the revelation of abraded skeletons. “Yeah, madness.”That’s all it’ll ever be.
I fallover the threshold when the doorknob slips from between my fingers. “Oh, fuck,” I mumble through a mouthful of skittles. The ground comes toward me at a slow crawl, shimmering with an iridescent hue around the edges.
Hot, hard arms clamp around me, and I giggle when the force of momentum stills and I’m able to swallow. Oak and spicy citrus floods my nostrils, and I bury my nose into the smell, humming happily as it licks across my brain like a warm blanket.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
My abdomen contracts on another snicker, and my head rocks back and forth against hard muscle and bone. Fingers flex, digging into my ribs, and while the pressure should hurt, it feels like touching air.
“You think this is funny?” Peris’s incensed tone floods directly down my ear canal. I flinch away from the volume, feeling like a wave when my body reacts to the stimuli two seconds too late.
Solid warmth leaves me cold and bereft. I blink at the vacant space in front of me, now on my own two feet that don’t really feel like my feet. Something crinkly is shoved against my chest. “Look what they fucking gavemesince you decided you weren’t going to show up for yourpracticetoday,” he sneers the word like it’s dirty coming from his tongue. I giggle at the way his face is twisted, like he ate one of my sour candies.
Wrapped in clear plastic is pleated purple and white polyester. My cheer uniform. I blink. Swallow against my cottonmouth. Glance up through dark, damp lashes. “Want me to try it on for you?”
Peris splutters, cheeks flushing. “Try it—n-no.”
One eye squints as the other takes in his wide eyes. “Got it for you, though,” I respond slowly. The carpet twinkles with small, black dots. They almost look like diamonds.
My face floods with a prickling warmth that ignites through my throat, down the length of each arm. “Think, m’too high,” I slur, running my tongue along the roof of my mouth as my jaw creaks open and shut, again and again.
“You’re fuckinghighright now?”
“Mmm.” My eyes fall, leaving only a sliver of lavender-colored walls and bare toes curled into the carpet.
“Jesus Christ,” is uttered very close to my face, and then the world flips, gravity pulling my stomach, then twisting it into a swooping knot. I grunt at the pressure against my abdomen. Blood rushes to my head, making everything hot and compact.
I sway with every thunderous step Peris takes down the hall, loosening my muscles to glide with the movement because it’s much easier than keeping my muscles tense when they feel like fuzzy jelly.
The world flips once more with a hand braced on my back, another around my nape, and then I’m falling, falling…
I grunt when I crash onto something soft. It puffs up around me like a pillowy cloud. Lavender and spice wafts up, making me hum as I curl to bury my nose in it.
