I resist the urge to take a sip of my own drink and risk ruining the lip mask, tapping my finger against the side of the cup instead. “We’re just friends,” I mumble, thankful that the lip mask makes it tough to talk clearly.
“Friends who make out with each other?” Carla teases while Kiki pointedly ignores us, her face as unreadable as stone. She doesn’t even look over, too busy pulling open a packet of undereye patches.
I bite my tongue, resisting the urge to remind Carla that she and Kiki arealsojust friends. They didn’t seem to have any issue making out with each other, even though one of them has a boyfriend. A boyfriend that’s currently stranded outside in the middle of a storm.
A deep clap of thunder saves me from having to reply, drowning out the quiet music playing from the wireless speaker on the dresser.
“So, spill. What’s going on between you two?” Carla pries again, nudging her fist against my knee.
The lip mask suddenly feels like it’s burning when Kiki returns to my side, a set of gold comma-shaped patches beneath her eyes. She grips my chin so unexpectedly I almost jolt off the edge of my seat, but Kiki’s grip is firm enough to keep me in place. The patches she applies beneath my own eyes are so cold they send instant chills down my spine. Wet and slimy and making my skin crawl. I dare a glance up at her, unable to keep my gaze averted for long with her this close to me, but there’s no hint in her deep brown eyes about how she feels about Carla’s prying. It’s almost as if she’s looking right through me.
“Nothing,” I finally reply once Kiki has let go of me to wipe her damp fingers off on her sweatpants. “We’re just…” I hesitate, unsure how to describe what exactly we’re doing, and how much to reveal. Based on everyone’s reaction to my presence tonight, no one had any idea that Kai and I were… whatever it is that we are. I’m not sure how much he’s told them, or whether he prefers to keep that side of his life to himself. “We’re getting to know each other,” I finally settle on, a vague enough answer.
“Clearly,” Carla says with a snort. Suddenly, I’m grateful for the eyepatches. At least they cover up most of the color spreading across my cheeks.
Kiki still doesn’t say anything as she pulls up a fluffy pink stool and sits down beside me. Coming in here, I’d been terrified of what she might say once she had me alone. But the silence is even more unnerving. We’re only a few rooms down from Kai—assuming he didn’t head downstairs. Even if he did, he’s close enough that they wouldn’t try anything… would they?
“Kai had a really hard time at our old school,” Kiki says abruptly. I whip around to face her, but she’s not looking at me. She’s laser focused on mixing a mint green cream with the precision of a neurosurgeon.
“Oh, um, he never told me that,” I say when Kiki doesn’t continue, unsure what kind of response she’s expecting.
Kai, with his infinite charm and infectious laugh and bright-as-the-sun smile, doesn’t seem like the type to have a hard time with anything. Whether Kiki means he struggled with his grades—which has never seemed to be an issue for him, from what I’ve seen—or whether she means socially. It’s impossible for me to imagine a world where Kai isn’t beloved by everyone he meets. Where he’s bled dry of all the warmth that draws people to him.
“He doesn’t like to talk about it,” Kiki continues, setting the cream down on the vanity and handing me a paper towel. She gestures for me to wipe off my mouth when I stare at the towel blankly. Quickly, I clean the lip product off and take in a quick deep inhale, grateful to have one less thing weighing on me.
“Can’t blame him,” Carla mutters from over my shoulder. She seems to know more about what happened at Kai and Kiki’s old school than I do.
“What happened?” I ask tentatively, torn between not wanting to pry about something Kai hasn’t chosen to open up about and wanting to know more.
“People were just really shitty to him after he came out,” Kiki explains, her voice unusually hoarse as she tosses a fresh packet of under-eye patches to Carla.
I swallow hard. Flashes of my own past—of Joel—echo in the back of my mind. Kiki still doesn’t look directly at me as she picks the cream back up and brushes a swipe of it along my chin, focused on applying an even layer across my face as she continues.
“They made his life hell. No matter what we did, no matterhow many teachers we talked to, nothing ever changed. At one point Kai was skipping school almost every other day just because he didn’t want to have to deal with it. The principal was threatening to expel him if he missed any more classes, even after we told him a thousand times that he was skipping because he didn’t feel safe there.” She pauses with the brush pressed to my cheek, and exhales sharply. “So, our parents pulled us out and moved us across the state to be closer to our grandma. Because we knew if we stayed, things would never change. They’d only get worse.”
Tears spring to my eyes and I hope Kiki doesn’t notice. The story is achingly familiar. I’ve never told mine out loud, but I wonder if I’d be able to control my emotions the way Kiki is right now. Then again, hers is easier to tell because the story has a happy ending. Kai is okay. Not just okay but thriving.
My brother is gone.
Kiki shakes herself off slightly, picking up where she left and swiping the brush along the slope of my nose. “When we started at Millcreek, I knew things had to be different. I tried so hard to protect my brother at our old school, but it meant nothing in the end. People didn’t care if I threatened them, or if I landed them in detention for what they did or said to him. They just did it again, and again, and again. But we had a fresh slate here. Nobody knew who we were—what we’d been through.”
She stalls again, the brush dry of product. The cream feels ice-cold on my skin, almost cold enough to burn. Kiki doesn’t dip the brush back into the pot, though. Instead, she finally looks at me head on—the intensity of her gaze pinning me in place. The heat of it warming my chilled skin. Her eyes narrow slightly, something darkening behind themas she leans in just enough for me to feel the heat of her breath against my skin.
“I knew from the minute I stepped foot in that school that I wasn’t going to let anyone fuck with Kai.Anyone.”
Slowly, the missing pieces of the puzzle that is Kiki Thompson come together. How the twin sister of a boy who is as warm as pure sunshine can be so cold. Why she’s so willing to tear others down, to strike fear into people she barely knows.
It’s a survival tactic.
From the moment Kiki and Kai arrived at Millcreek, they were the center of attention. Our class is made up of the same hundred or so kids we spent elementary and middle school with. New kids are rare. The sudden spotlight could’ve easily sunk them—landed them in the same position they were in at their last school.
I can see those first few weeks of the school year from Kiki’s perspective now. Showing up in a new environment with a blank slate—a chance to make yourself whoever you want, or need, to be. If I were in her position—if I had a chance to start over with Joel—maybe I would’ve done the same thing. Befriended Carla Gutierrez, head cheerleader and top of the social food chain. Matched her easy cruelness. Made it clear that if anyone ever dared to fuck with her, there would be a problem.
Kiki built herself a suit of armor within weeks of arriving at Millcreek. An armor that she knew would extend to Kai. It’s admirable, really. How quickly she was able to rise through the ranks and establish herself as someone worthy of the entire student body’s respect. To get her brother the fresh start he deserved.
“I get it,” I say, more to myself than to her.
Kiki stops swirling her brush through the cream to blink up at me with a furrowed brow.
