Page 41 of No Merciful Corruption

Visiting them is bittersweet. I do it because I’m a good granddaughter but coming home makes me sad. It reminds me of a childhood I can never go back to and a family I can never have again. Nowadays the sting of nostalgia is just that. Something which doesn’t linger and fades as quickly as a passing shower.

“We should order a pie from Tony’s and sit on the front stoop. Just like old times.” I give her shoulder a playful nudge. “Maybe Bobby Stefon will pass by if we’re lucky.”

“Oh God,” she rolls her eyes at the mention of the cutest boy in our middle school. “Did you know he’s going bald and has three different baby mamas now?”

“What!”

She grins. “Mhm. I bumped into his grandmother at church on Ash Wednesday. Quite the scandal.”

“I wonder what everyone says about me.”

“Everyone thinks you either married a narco or became a sugar baby to a European billionaire.” She tilts her head back and forth. “I mean…”

“Hey, hey, hey!” I protest. “My boyfriend is not a narco. He commits tax evasion like a respectable criminal.”

She snorts. “You’re so ridiculous. I doubt that’s what Alejandro actually does but I’d prefer it if you kept the nitty gritty to yourself. I’d rather not get whacked.”

“Getting whacked is soooo 90s anyway.” We smile at each other and giggle the entire walk to my grandparents’ house.

As we approach the stoop, the front door opens and someone makes their way down the steps. It isn’t until Lyss and I are only a few feet away does the woman descending lift her head and meet our gazes.

She stops in her tracks.

I hardly recognize Karina at first. Her hair is the longest I’ve seen it in our entire lives—nearly as long as mine and grazing the small of her back. Her petite frame is bundled up in a long trench coat with a fur collar and she has a designer bag slung over her shoulder with stockings and kitten heels to match. Her blush and lipstick are an unflattering shade of pink and better suited to a woman of much fairer coloring. When she lifts a hand to grip her collar, I notice her nails are long and baby pink, perfectly manicured and so unlike her. Or at least, unlike the old her.

I nearly spin on the balls of my feet to sprint in the opposite direction. We rarely cross paths and I’ve made it very clear to my grandparents that I refuse to speak to her. They don’t know why we fell out only that we did and if they want me to keep visiting, they can’t plot behind my back to get us to see each other. For the most part they’ve honored my wishes and I haven’t bumped into her since last year.

Lyss keeps an iron grip on my upper arm and refuses to let go. Karina pauses for only a beat and I can’t tell if she wants to say something or is afraid to. In the end she presses her lips together and descends the last step and walks past us without saying a word.

“Hi Karina.” Lyss says.

I yank on her arm. “Alyssa Marie.”

Karina stops. Turns around. “Hi Lyss.”

“We’re so glad we bumped into you.” My traitorous best friend plasters on a smile. “As a matter of fact, Dahlia was just telling me she owed you a phone call.”

Karina’s gaze flickers between me and Lyss. Disbelief mingled with hope brims within the amber of her eyes and I can tell she holds her breath by the way her shoulders still. “Oh?” she says in response.

“Lyss, stop.”

She ignores me. “It was so nice of you to show up at the hospital last month. It meant a lot.”

Whatever I was about to say turns to ash on the tip of my tongue.

“You—” I turn to Karina. “I…”

Words evade me. Karina stands there, silent and unmoving, and for once I wish she would speak to me. Say something, anything.

Instead she gives a polite nod and murmurs a quick, “Of course. I’m glad you’re better.”

My cousin walks away and I’m the stuttering fool on the sidewalk with nothing to say. All of me has been clawed out of my chest with the ragged edges of an unsharpened knife and laid bare for the world to see. Vulnerable to the elements like wind, fire, and ice seeping into a poorly cauterized wound. The urge to cry overwhelms me and I don’t know why.

She was in the hospital…she was in the hospital and didn’t see me. Why?

I turn to Lyss ready to raise hellfire on her. “Why did you do that?”

My voice is raw and angry but she knows me to well. She senses the pain underneath.