Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(83)

Gloria’s eyes filled with tears. She didn’t move.

Teo was coming down the stairs now, slowly. “Millie—”

“Fuck you, virgin,” I said, halting him in his tracks. “If you ever meet your Echo, I hope she likes drinking dog slobber from ashtrays, because that’s what kissing you is like, you f*cking self-hating pocho.”

Teo slowly retreated back up the stairs. I was too far gone to read or care about the expression on his face.

I turned back to Gloria then. “I used to think I knew who deserved to die, and I took it on myself to wipe her off the face of the earth. But even the nastiest bitch means something to someone. Fuck, even you have a boyfriend.”

Phil made a hurt animal sound, and I waited for him to say something that I could turn inside out and throw back at him. But he didn’t.

“Call a cab, Song,” I said, “and also, f*ck you. Your baby’s ugly. Fuck you, too, Tjuan, while I’m at it, you paranoid, hostile dick, and f*ck you, Stevie, for never saying hi or shutting off the goddamned faucet all the way, and f*ck you, Gloria, for counting on your height to keep people from telling you what a two-faced, cloying little cunt you are. The whole crazy-ass lot of you have made my time here a seven-day cruise through all nine rings of hell.”

I stormed out and was halfway down the sidewalk before I realized I’d left my suitcase. Damned if I was going to walk back in there to get it.

? ? ?

In case it isn’t clear, this was not a victory.

I’ll admit, there are few highs quite like using words to turn your enemies into a stack of bloody cubes. But then you cool off, and that stack of minced flesh doesn’t just hop back together into a whole person. Long after you quit feeling that glorious rage, your words linger.

Memory is a sketch artist, not a camera. People add and subtract whatever detail they need to. They say they forgive you, but they don’t.

Don’t believe me? Just wait and see what your pal lobs back at you years later during an unrelated argument. There’s your diatribe, like a fly in amber.

Even if what you said was true, that only makes it worse. Truth should be left in wrapped boxes for people to open when they’re ready. When it’s used as a blade, they vacuum-seal the pain somewhere deep inside, sealing the truth in with it, until it’s time to turn it inside out and cut someone else.

I tried to forget the way Teo backed up the stairs, and how young Gloria looked, the end of her nose pink from tears. But I couldn’t, and when it comes down to it, I shouldn’t.

Kids, please don’t try this at home.

? ? ?

With no phone, no other belongings, and no place to spend the night, I told the cabdriver to take me back to the Leishman Center. I was paid up through the end of the month, and so I guessed (correctly) that I’d be allowed back into my still-empty room without excessive bureaucracy. I had no things to unpack, so I just flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Dr. Davis showed up just before dinner, hovering gravely in the doorway. She looked older than I remembered, her sleek angled bob tucked behind her ears.

“I’m a little disappointed to see you back here,” she said.

“That makes two of us,” I said. I’d missed that bland voice.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Dr. Davis hesitated, running her fingers through her hair. “You’ll need to start arranging another place to stay,” she said.

I sat up. “Why? I can pay for a few more months.”

“You checked yourself out a week ago, Millie, and someone had his father on a waiting list for a private room. He’ll be moving in at the first of the month.”

Something squeezed at my insides, but I was too exhausted for full-fledged panic. “Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

“I still have your grandparents’ phone number on file, if you’d like to call them.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

“You can use one of ours.”

“To call Mississippi?”

“Under the circumstances, yes.”

I had only met my grandparents once as a child and hadn’t spoken to them in more than a decade. But there comes a point at which familial awkwardness seems like a fart in a storm.

In a dead-end backwater like Graston, Mississippi, the money I had left could last me a hell of a long time. Sure, I’d never taste another fresh avocado, or watch another decent film. But I shoved that to the back of my mind, because when you’ve lived in L.A. for eight years, the word “homeless” is no longer abstract; it comes with vivid sense-memories of people you’ve passed that day on the street.

It wasn’t eight p.m. yet in Mississippi, so I figured even old folks would still be awake. When someone picked up the phone, I was surprised at how instantly I recognized that dirt-and-worms voice.

“Hi, Grandpa,” I said. “It’s Millie.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said. I waited for more, but that was it.

I knew Grandpa wasn’t one for small talk, so I cut to the chase. “California isn’t working out too well for me, so I wondered if I could stay with you and Granny for a bit while I figure out what to do next.”

“You know your grandmother’s dead, right?”

“I—I didn’t. I’m sorry.”