The Vow

Because Annie’s coming. And when she’s around I’m not spiraling toward insanity or begging the cat to stop screwing with me or worrying about Sarina. I get to live with my best friend. It’ll be fun. We’ll stay up late watching South Park reruns, and she can set up her easel in the corner of the family room where my boxes and junk used to be, and maybe she’ll even make some half-decent food every once in a while. Not like I’m expecting her to, but it’d be nice. I could offer tutoring for food. Or even better, she could teach me how to make some half-decent food for myself. That would work too.

The relief doesn’t last long before guilt finds me, prickles my skin like the glare of that evil, evil cat. I am one selfish bastard. I’m sitting here thinking about how awesome this extended slumber party is going to be when Annie is at home packing up her life. Closing down. Logging out. Shutting off.

It’s not that I don’t feel bad, because I do. But I didn’t ask her to do it. She dreamed it up and chose it again and again and again, even after I tried to talk her out of it. So maybe it makes me a jerk, but for the first time since my family left, I’m happy. After a few days of loneliness, living with Annie sounds like heaven.

Chapter 21

Annie

You look like hell,” Flora says.

“Thank you.”

She takes the cigarette out of her mouth and chucks it into the parking lot planter. It looks like it may have held a plant at one time, before being converted into a giant ashtray. “Hon, when’s the last time you ate?”

“I’m sick,” I say.

She takes lip gloss and a compact from her purse and starts reapplying. “Lovesick?”

“No. He’s not here, is he?”

“Believe it or not, he’s sick too. Y’all are either sharing germs or driving each other insane.”

“Neither. Not anymore.”

She sighs and slips the gloss back into her purse, her lips like shimmering worms. “Do I want to know what happened?”

I shake my head.

“You aren’t here to quit, are you?”

“Is Soup here?”

She rolls her eyes, then scratches the back of her head, and the entire hairsprayed mass of burgundy shifts back and forth. “Half of his staff is dying of broken teenage hearts and too sick to work. Of course he’s here.”

“I’m not quitting over a broken heart,” I lie.

“Just like how working here in the first place wasn’t about trying to become your sister?”

I’m too tired to argue, so I just scowl.

“What? If you aren’t going to be working here anymore, it seems like I should be able to say my piece. Your sister was a sweet girl. You’re a sweet girl.”

I stare at my car keys, run my thumb over the panic button. If I press it, she might be startled enough to let it go.

“Stop trying to fill her place in the universe. You’re going to be miserable if you’re always trying to be what other people need you to be.”

“Okay.” I take a step toward the door.

“I’m not done dispensing life tips.” She puts her hand over the knob. “Boys are breakable. Even the big, strong ones that act like nothing touches them, so be careful with them.”

Panic button. Panic button. Panic button. My thumb traces the indent, and I’m about to press it when she pulls the door open and holds it for me.

“Okay, now I’m done,” she says.

I walk through, still looking down so she won’t see the tears pooling in my eyes. Being lectured is so much better than being pitied.

Quitting is awkward, but Soup takes it well. He’s unreasonably kind actually, considering I’ve cheated on his brother-in-law and left him short-staffed with no notice. But maybe Reed hasn’t told him yet. Soup even gives me a hug and tells me to take care, which makes me feel worse about everything and almost unable do what I really came down here to do. After all, I could’ve quit over the phone.

I’ve never stolen anything before. It seems like everybody has a childhood shoplifting story to tell—Mo took Tic Tacs from a Kroger—but I never stole anything, or if I did, I don’t remember it. Maybe that’s why I’m sure someone’s watching me as I stuff the acrylic peach apron into my shoulder bag. Ruffles and ties and more ruffles, I cram them in with my heart thumping, even though I know Flora and Soup are back at the counter scooping custard.

Mo was right all along. This job was a bad idea. I was never trying to become Lena, but I was supposed to get closer to her in some way. I’ve failed. I don’t know how I thought I was going to do it, but without a doubt, I have failed.

I slink out with burning cheeks and my tightly packed bundle of peach memories.

Driving back to my house, I come to the conclusion that I may never feel good again. Not good as in fine. I mean, I may never feel like a decent human being, someone who isn’t pure poison to the people who love her, who doesn’t betray and deceive and abandon. And steal aprons.

The memory of Reed’s eyes at the exact moment the lie stuck makes me wish someone would hurt me like that. Just to make it even. Maybe I didn’t say the words, but I stood in front of him and cried, and let him think I slept with Mo. He’d told me about his ex-girlfriend—why didn’t I dream up a different way of doing it so he didn’t have to be betrayed like that again? Anything would have been better than slicing open his half-healed scar.

I can’t remember his eyes yesterday afternoon without remembering his body. His wanting sharpens the pain, the way his hands reached for me, pulling me in to him, and how his lips found the base of my throat like he’d been just waiting for me to come by so he could taste me. Before he knew I was really there to shred his heart, he needed me.

As I’m pulling into the driveway, my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

“Hi, Annie, it’s Sam.”

I’m too drained to fake cheerfulness. “Hi.”

“I just talked to Mo about some of the details on his application, and I thought I should give you a call too.”

“Oh. Mo’s got all my info and documents and stuff. I don’t really know—”

“No,” she interrupts, “that’s not why I’m calling. I felt like we should have had a conversation yesterday when you came in. Just you and me.”

I turn off the car, but don’t get out. “Okay.”

“What you’re doing, was it your idea or Mo’s?”

“Getting married?” I ask. “Um, mine.”

She’s silent, and I can feel her not believing me. It didn’t matter so much with the lady at the courthouse, but for some reason it matters that Sam thinks I’m a liar.

“Really,” I say firmly. “It was my idea. I asked him to marry me.”

“Okay.” She pauses, and I picture her putting the phone to her other ear, regrouping, changing tactics. “But if you wanted to change your mind—”

“I’m not changing my mind. I’m married. I want to be married.” It takes every ounce of strength in my body to say it and mean it.

“I believe you,” she says. “I do. But I was doing some research this morning, and there are a whole bunch of different student visas Mo could apply for. He might even be eligible for a high school—”

“I’m not changing my mind,” I interrupt.

“I just need you to know that you can change your mind, that you aren’t locked into—”

“I’ve got to go,” I say.