99 Days(67)

“And, like, a million classic movies!” Imogen protests.

“But mostly the salad dressing,” I point out.

“I do like salad dressing,” Tess says diplomatically. “Or, okay, though, what about the kid from One Direction—”

“Which kid from One Direction?” I interrupt.

“The floppy one.”

“They’re all floppy.”

“The floppiest one!” Tess says, laughing, swearing as we hit a pothole and she splashes water from her Nalgene all over herself. “The kid from One Direction, Justin Bieber, and the Backstreet Boy of your choice.”

“Kill Justin Bieber,” Imogen and I say in perfect unison, then dissolve into giggles. I was dreading this trip, but I’m surprised by how light I feel here in this car with them, legs stretched across the backseat and my hair knotted sloppily at the very top of my head. It feels like it doesn’t matter, everything that’s happened before now. It feels like maybe I can start clean.

“No, no, wait, I’ve got the best one,” Imogen says, pushing her sunglasses up on her nose and pausing dramatically. “Fuck, Marry, Kill: Gabe Donnelly, Patrick Donnelly, Julia Donnelly.”

For a second, the car is totally silent, just the hum of the little Italian motor and static cutting in and out on the radio as we pass through the mountains.

Then we all crack the hell up.





Day 76


Tess sacks out around midnight, the cheery purple glow of a Friends rerun on the old tube TV in our motel room; she’s an easy sleeper, our Tess, limbs starfished sloppily across the bed. I’m not tired, though, not even a little: “I’m going to check out the vending machine,” I tell Imogen, slipping outside and down the concrete staircase, humid night pressing in from all sides.

I dig a dollar out of my shorts and get myself a pack of Twizzlers—not Red Vines, but they’ll do in a pinch—then wander back up to where our room is. Instead of going back inside, I lean over the concrete railing for a minute, staring blankly at the neon light of the motel sign and the Burger King across the street and trying to ignore the chorus of voices—Julia’s, Connie’s, Penn’s, Patrick’s loudest of all—echoing endlessly through my skull. I don’t know how long I’m out there before the door opens behind me.

“You’re right here?” Imogen asks, flipping the deadbolt so the door won’t lock behind her and joining me on the catwalk. The faint scent of cigarettes lurks in the air. “I thought you got murdered.”

“Sorry,” I tell her, holding out the package of Twizzlers. She’s in her pajamas, these crisp old-fashioned looking things with pink and white stripes. “Was just thinking.”

“About what, huh?” Imogen asks, fishing a strand of licorice out of the plastic. “You’re been emo all day.”

“I have not!” I protest. Have I? I’ve been trying to act normal—thought I was acting normal—but could be she knows me better than I give her credit for, even after all this time.

“Okay,” Imogen says, making a face like, nice try. “You and Tess both, a pair of Mopey Mopersons.”

Yeah. “That’s what my driver’s license says, actually,” I tell her, leaning against the railing. There’s a scatter of moths flinging themselves at the yellow light mounted to the wall.

“Mm-hmm,” Imogen says, smiling a little. “What’s up?”

I don’t answer for a minute, debating. I tuck my messy hair behind my ears. I remember that I didn’t tell her last time, that I carried my secret like a rock in my shoe and in the end it came tumbling out anyhow.

This time, I tell her everything.

*

Imogen looks at me for a moment once I’m finished, unreadable. Then she shakes her head. “That’s f*cked up,” Imogen tells me. “Crap, why the hell did you just tell me that, Molly?”

I blink. “I thought—” I start, that same horrible sinking feeling as I got the other night with Patrick, like I’ve totally misread everything and everyone. “Should I not have?”

Imogen shakes her head again. “No, no, I take it back, of course I want you to tell me, but . . .” She glances over her shoulder at the door to our motel room, open just the tiniest crack. She moved over a little, sits right down on the grubby cement floor. Like an instinct, I sit down across from her, our bent knees making twin pyramids so that anyone walking by would have to spelunk over us. “Tess is my friend, too. Tess is your friend, too, I thought.”

“She is!”

“Really?” Imogen raises her eyebrows. “Because that was, like, a serious breach of the Ovary Code.”

“I know,” I say miserably, thumping my head back against the wall. “I know. I messed up. I really messed up, Imogen.”

“You did,” she says matter-of-factly. “You messed up huge. But so did Patrick. On top of which, I think virginity is kind of an antiquated concept, right? Like some boy sticking it in you changes who you are as a human being?”


“I don’t know if it was so much about the concept of my virginity as it was about me losing it to Gabe,” I point out.

“I mean, fair.” Imogen sighs. “Look, you know I never thought it was so bad, what you did with Gabe to begin with. I mean, it was bad, but it’s not like you killed anybody. But the point is that the moment it gets to be about doing messed-up stuff to other girls is the moment I get off the train.”