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Zebedee had made some comment, like he usually did, and usually she scoffed, rolled her eyes, or ignored him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been acting like an entitled asshole for his entire life, after all.
When they were in middle school, he had once asked her if she wanted to go to the spring dance by saying, Hey, Essence, it’s your lucky day. You finally have a date for the dance.
She’d only sputtered at him, muttered something like, I don’t think so, and then not even gone to the stupid dance.
When they were in high school, one day he had cornered her outside the cafeteria, tucking his long blue hair behind his ears, waggling his eyebrows at her, and said, Let’s be real, Essence, you’ve been saving yourself for me, and we both know it.
She had gaped at him. Eew, was all she could say.
I’ve wanted to pop your cherry ever since we were kids, he said.
Do me a favor, Zebedee, she said. Kill yourself.
Anyway, none of this boded well for anything in their adulthood, of course, but it did happen to resemble one of those awful hate-to-love movies. Wanting a guy to kill himself and wanting to bang him, they were practically the same thing according to Hollywood, so…
Anyway, she was feeling particularly low that holiday season. So, when Zebedee had come across the temple aisle to offer his congratulations to Juniper and then said something horrid to Essence like, Think about what pretty kids we’d make together. Think about how much fun it would be to make them, she had just laughed, like it was a joke, not borderline sexual harassment.
And when he’d wanted her phone number, she’d given it to him. And when he’d asked her on a date, she’d gone. And when he’d given her a big, long speech about how he wasn’t sure if he was ready to settle down, she had still gone to bed with him.
He’d been, you know, kinda good in bed, admittedly.
That was always the way, wasn’t it? The awful ones were sexy?
It was ironic, of course, that when it came down to the possibility that she might be pregnant, he’d been pushing for an abortion—illegal as they may be in West Virginia. Of course, she didn’t agree with the illegality herself, but she also wasn’t the sort of person who needed an abortion, not in her position in life, not at her age. She was glad it had been a false alarm. She wouldn’t have wanted to have had Zebedee’s child, not in the end.
But she had been really sad not to have had a baby at all, something that had sort of stunned her. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted it.
Now, Zebedee was standing in the front of the Meck, hands in his pockets, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, while she and Decker were coming to terms with the fact that they could each only put one arm in their coats.
Decker tucked her coat around her shoulder. “Here.”
She attempted to do the same for him, but that made her coat fall off her shoulder.
“Don’t worry about me,” said Decker. “You’ll be much colder than I will.”
“My car does have heat,” said Zebedee.
“Wait, what?” said Decker. “We’re going in his car? Where does his grandfather live?”
“In Martinsburg,” said Essence. “Sorry. I should have mentioned.”
“Okay, well, just give me the address,” said Decker. “I’ll drive my car.”
“You’re handcuffed,” said Zebedee.
“It’s fine,” said Decker. “What? You going to drive me all the way back to my car afterwards?”
“Well, I was thinking I’d bring Essence home, so yeah,” said Zebedee. “Besides, I live in Shenandoah Junction, so I have to come back through here.”
“No,” said Decker. “No, we’re taking my car.”
“You’ve been drinking,” said Essence.
“So has he.” Decker pointed at Zebedee. “And probably smoking weed. So, I imagine we’re both equally impaired. Of course, maybe not, considering—again—my size versus his size.”
Zebedee let out a disbelieving noise. “You did not just say that.”
“Zebedee,” said Essence.
