She grits her teeth, pulling the tears back in. “Don’t get all high and mighty with the political correctness now. You don’t just marry a person. You marry a family and a religion and a culture—do you even know the first thing about any of it?”
My heart is racing now.
“Do you know how they treat their women?”
“I know how Mo treats me.”
“Do you realize that according to them you’re his property now?”
“It’s not li—”
“Or that your children will be Muslim, even if you aren’t? Although if you’ve already converted, that’s obviously not something that’s going to bother you. Have you?”
I stare into her eyes. Who said anything about converting to Islam? Her eyes really are brilliant when she’s angry. The sparkle reminds me of my new ring.
“But if you think that’s something that’s not going to bother me and your dad, you’re wrong. Sorry if it’s not politically correct, or if it makes me old-fashioned and small-minded in your eyes, but there’s something to be said for calling it like it is.”
I’m too blindingly angry to speak. I can’t even think with her eyes cutting into me like that. It’s the glare. I don’t even know which question to answer first. But silence sounds like stupidity to her, and I wish I weren’t too stunned to breathe.
“I just never thought you’d hurt us this way,” she says bitterly.
“That’s the problem!” I hear myself yell, but it doesn’t even feel like me. It’s some other girl, some other explosion. “There isn’t a maximum amount of pain you can feel. It’s not like you can use it all up on Lena and expect to be done. I can’t hide in my room the rest of my life because your heart is already too broken. It’s not my fault that you let what happened to her crush you.”
She pulls in her chin and lifts her shoulders like she’s bracing, but it’s too late. I’ve already said it. We’re both too shocked to do anything but stare at each other. Tears pool in her eyes. Finally she stretches out her arm again, pushing the card inches from my hand. “Take it.”
I slap it away.
It doesn’t feel like my hand, but now there’s a slight stinging in the center of my palm where it connected, and in the seconds that it takes for the card to cartwheel through the air, I hear her gasp like it’s her face that I’ve slapped. The card clatters as it hits the cement, the sound echoing like applause. Or gunfire.
I can’t look at her in the silence that follows. I stare at the card, lying facedown beneath the tailpipe of a minivan. We’re finished. I turn away.
Chapter 24
Mo
I stumble backward and sink.
It’s pretty lame. I always thought I’d be able to take a punch to the face like a man. Sure, it would hurt, but there would be that wholesome, ringing
But I don’t see it coming.
I thought if I was going to get punched in the face, it was going to be by Mr. Bernier, which is why I’m in a constant state of cringing when I so much as think his name. But we haven’t seen either of Annie’s parents since she spiked her mom’s credit card across the parking lot two weeks ago. It never occurred to me I would take my first honest, closed-fisted punch to the jaw from my friend, which is why I’m not bracing when I open the door and see Bryce.
“Hey, loser! I thought you weren’t back till next week!” I say, and that’s the last thing to leave my mouth before Bryce’s fist smashes into it. Pain explodes through my face, shooting up into my brain and down my neck, followed by the sensation of flying in reverse, like I’ve got a rubber band attached to my neck and I’m being snapped backward. And there’s a lot of noise—a high-pitched screaming like a train whistle—but I can’t tell where it’s coming from, and it stops when I hit the open door behind me and slide to the ground. Colors go streaky. Rainbow Twizzlers fading into dust . . .
He’s leaning over me now, but I’m spinning too fast to be thinking defensively. I close my eyes. No good, still spinning. And the jaw ache is radiating into my skull now.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he yells. “I would do anything for you! And you know what? If you’d have told me, I probably would have been okay with it. At least I would’ve tried. But you . . . How long have you . . . ?”
He can’t even finish it. And I can’t answer, not just because I don’t have any control over my jaw, or because my thoughts feel like they’re vibrating and are no longer in a language I speak, but because there is no allowable answer. I close my eyes and shake my head. I don’t want to look at his face anymore.
Guilt and vertigo swirl in my gut, pushing puke up into the back of my throat, but I swallow. It burns all the way down.
“Never mind,” he mutters.
I keep my eyes shut and listen as his footsteps retreat. Then nothing. I wish I could pass out for some temporary relief. Aren’t you supposed to get some unconscious recovery time when you get hit that hard? But no, I have to be wide awake to wallow in pain and guilt.
I was going to tell him. I was. But I didn’t think he was going to be back until next week, and I had no clue he’d take it so hard. Except now, even through muddy, concussive thoughts, it seems clear that he would. He’s always loved Annie—how did I forget that complicating and inconvenient piece of information? And unlike everyone else in E-town, he’s always believed we were just friends, because he was my friend, and friends believe each other.
I open my eyes to verify that yes, the entire world is still on Tilt-A-Whirl setting. Everything’s twisting together. I
My cheek is that vibrant pink of raw tuna. I touch it gingerly and then say every expletive I know to combat the pain.
“Mo?” I hear Annie’s voice call. “Where are you? Did you know the front door is wide open?”
Annie. Job interview. Good, I still know basics. “Yeah. Or no. I forgot to close it.”
“Do you want to hear how my inter . . .”
I glance at her reflection, then back at my own. I don’t know who looks scarier. Her eyes are actually trying to exit her cranium.
Thank goodness she’s whispering. “Um, Bryce stopped by. These are his warm wishes to us for a lifetime of happiness together.”
“Actually yes.”
“He did that to you?” She reaches out and, before I can stop her, puts her fingers on my cheek.
