Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 5
I have no ride.I can’t get back home to change. So right now I’m hiding in the bathroom, scrubbing my face with my fingertips in vain, watching pink and red swirl down the drain. I could call Mom, but she hasn’t been doing great the last few months, and I don’t know yet if I want her to see me like this. She was so excited about this move, about living in Pietro’s nice house, about me making friends with his son.
I run a clean part of my sleeve over the fake blood smear on my phone, and accidentally turn the screen on.
Barkley: I hope your first day isn’t going as bad as I think it is. CB x
I swipe the text preview away. It wouldn’t exactly help my case if anyone saw that. But immediately it’s replaced by another one.
Barkley: Please be strong. He’s dead but his wishes still matter.
I swipe it away, angrier this time.
Barkley: Don’t tell.
Furious suddenly, I throw the phone across the bathroom and sink to the ground, sitting on my heels with my arms wrapped around my corn-syrup-sticky knees. I dip my head and suck in a shuddering breath. I wish anger had ever manifested itself in me as anything other than tears. It feels so juvenile.
I hear the door, and my eyes fly open wide and I look up to see who it is that’s seeing me like this. In a semi-fetal position on a bathroom stall on my first day back here. A white flat shoe, and then another, comes to a stop in front of my cracked phone. Someone bends down and picks it up, and then I barely register that it’s being held out to me. Offered.
Looking further up, I wonder if this is going to be a trick. But then I take it and get to my feet. The girl is a couple of inches taller than me, a little skinnier, with long snow white hair tied up tight and big eyes behind glasses. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. She’s dressed like a librarian.
“A-are you a teacher?” I ask her. “Sorry you walked in on me like that.” I head back to the sink to resume washing my face and arms. She is still staring at me, and I realize she’s a little afraid. “It’s not blood,” I say over my shoulder.
She finally swallows, and gives her head a small shake. Her bun shakes too. “That’s really good to hear, because if your real blood smelled that strongly of corn syrup, I would assume you had some rare and probably fatal disease.” I almost laugh. But I’m still not in the mood. “No, I’m not a teacher.” She looks down at her loose wool cardigan, high-necked shirt and long skirt. “But thank you for the fashion feedback.” I smile apologetically at her. She isn’t being sarcastic or funny, weirdly. She seems fully serious.
“I’m not exactly ready to give advice on what to wear to school,” I say, foaming up soap in my hands.
“I guess not,” she says, and the hint of a smile tugs at her serious expression, but it’s interrupted by the door again.
“Crap,” I whisper, even before I see who it is. Two girls, arm in arm, shuffle into the bathroom. They have identical long hair dyed two slightly different shades of golden blonde. They’re both wearing the same cropped shirt and short skirt, except they have swapped color schemes. One is wearing black and white; the other white and black. It’s so coordinated, and I hate to admit that it looks pretty cool.
“Oh my god,” one of them whimpers. Cady and Cassidy Meyer. In the last six months it looks like they decided to go blonde, and try out for the cheerleading team if the pompoms sticking out of their bags aren’t just for decoration. Sometimes, when the universe isn’t quite as kind as it was to Aurelia, people try to usher on changes themselves. And sometimes it works out just as well. Good for them.
“That’s so disgusting, oh my god, oh my—” Cassidy has the back of her hand pressed to her mouth as they both stare over at me. Before I can say anything, she bolts for the stall and we hear her retching. I sigh.
“I guess my presence here has officially ruined several people’s days.”
Cady makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. “She would have thrown up today anyway,” she says, and pulls lipstick from her purse. She turns to the other girl and I, and quirks an eyebrow. “Kidding. Jeez.”
The librarian girl heads to a stall, as if put off by being noticed at all, leaving me and Cady alone. “You did kinda ruin my day, though,” she says, smacking her lips together. “I bet twenty dollars there was no way you’d ever come back here, even when everybody insisted you really were.” Pleased with her reflection, she heads outside without waiting for her sister.
After a minute, Cassidy leaves the stall and gives me a teary glare. “Go back to Canada, bitch,” she says, washes up, and leaves.
“I was never in Canada,” I say to nobody, finally daring to turn and look at my reflection. It’s awful. It’s so bad. I could not look any worse.
The serious-looking girl leaves the stall, and washes her hands in silence. I wait patiently, since she looks like she wants to say something, and I’m curious. “You’re Andrea Palmer, aren’t you?” she finally asks, looking at my reflection. I nod.
“Killer Bitch in the flesh,” I say. “My friends and family call me KB. Or so I just learned.”
Her smile is odd, like someone has a fishhook attached to one side of her mouth. Her eyes still look serious. “They all call me Zero,” she says, and dries her hands. Her voice is very quiet, but I hear it clearly in the echoey room. “See you around, KB.” With another odd smile, she leaves the bathroom.
In all my corn syrup angst, I almost forgot that high school sucks for almost everybody.
In fact, we were the exception. This is just a wrong being righted.