“Full disclosure,” Laurel told me through a hiccup. “I overheard the whole thing.”
“Wonderful.” I plucked her cigarette out of her mouth and threw it. “Those will kill you.”
She reached into her pack for a replacement. “Die young, leave a pretty corpse.”
“No,” I scolded her, throwing that one too. “You’re all I’ve got. You don’t get to leave me.”
She let out a sigh and pressed her head onto my shoulder. “That’s why we’re like this. So we’ll always be around for each other.”
“So you’re always going to be this big a pain in my ass?”
“Probably.” Her laugh was warm. Mollifying. “You know nothing happens when you graduate, right? You don’t suddenly know what you’re doing or who you are. You don’t become an adult or anything. You’re just the same shitty person, one year later, with more responsibilities and problems. My students look at me like I’msomature, but I’m, what, five years older than they are? I have this recurring nightmare that one of them is bagging my groceries at Cub and sees that I subsist on Welch’s Fruit Snacks and French bread pizza Lean Cuisines. And then, suddenly,I’ma French bread pizza LeanCuisine, and they’re, like, stuffingmein a microwave…” She trailed off sleepily and dug her head deeper into my neck. Then, out of nowhere, she whispered, “I think I need to talk to someone.”
“About your teenage boy diet?” I asked.
“About my brain, you idiot.”
“Like a therapist?”
“Yeah,” she hummed. She was falling asleep. “Or an astrologer.”
I pulled my head back to look at her. She was so small curled up next to me, and it was as though I was sitting with every version of my sister all at once, even the youngest Laurel I could remember.
We sat there like that until a change in the wind shifted the stench of vomit in our direction. I grunted and heaved my sister up to carry her to my dorm.
“I’m sorry he’s leaving,” Laurel murmured.
My heart panged. “Me too.”
“I’m sorry I called you a bitch back in his van.”
“I don’t think you did.”
“Oh. That’s good.” She yawned. “I love you, Char Char.”
“I love you too,” I told her, because I did, and it felt good to have someone stick around long enough to let me love them close up.
Chapter 20
Eight Hours to the Winnipeg Petco
Monday, Now
“I’m dead. Idied last night. This is my ghost.”
Petey might be thrilled to see us, but Laurel is visibly hungover, though still adorable in a pink halter dress and her largest pair of sunglasses.
“I might be a ghost too,” I respond, sinking into the camping chair beside her.
“Did Ethan kill you with his penis?”
I shush her. “How did you know Ethan and I…”
“I didn’t.” Her pleased grin is so big and white, I can hardly look at it. “But now I do. Holy shit!”
I should play it cool, but I can’t suppress the goofy smile that’s been permanently plastered on my face since last night. “Keep your voice down.”
“This is major.” She sits up excitedly, before her hangover sends her back into the depths of the nylon chair.
