Page 54 of Dark Ugly Places

“Geez. How much pain are you in?”

“Gee, I don’t know, let me check my pain weathervane.” I lick my finger and stick it into the air. “Your mother reports she’s in a ton of pain. Just give her all the weed you have.”

Emmy runs upstairs and comes back down. She has a small bag that she dumps on the table. They look like regular wrapped candies.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t freak out. Someone at school gave them to me. She got them for free. Her brother works at a dispensary.”

“ ’Course he does.”

Emmy’s eyes are big, glowing orbs. She watches me as I take one, unwrap it, and pop it in my mouth. A lime-green Jolly Rancher. A smile passes over her lips as I pop it into the corner of my cheek. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to eat one?”

“I don’t know. What if I feel weird?”

“You mean you’ve never been high before?”

Emmy shakes her head no. I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. “You mean to tell me that you look like that, and you haven’t smoked weed?”

“What has gotten into you? You’d literally kill me if I came home stinking of pot. It’s not that I haven’t been offered. I just say no. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

“No, idiot. You’re supposed to say yes and then realize what you like and what you don’t like in life. If you don’t try, how do you know?”

“But it’s drugs …”

Careful, Martha. I swear to God, I will make you nonexistent.

I cough and nearly swallow the candy whole. “Look, you did the right thing, or whatever. You should always show it to your mom first and not accept anything from someone you don’t know. Period. Listen, little sister, this THC is already doing a number on your mom’s chronic pain. So, what do you think about that?”

Emmy gives a wary smile. “I think it’s good, I guess. But you’re really freaking me out, Mom.”

“Tell you what,” I try. “Let’s give Mom a little vacation for a while. And let’s you and me have some fun for a change.”

Emmy shrugs, but her eyes are twinkling. “Okay, I guess so.”

I take her in, her small frame, her warm brown eyes. If she wasn’t dressed so weirdly, and if her face wasn’t scowling so much under all that black eyeliner, Emmy might actually be beautiful.

“Come with me,” I say and head upstairs. “And bring the candy.”

We move upstairs and sit in Emmy’s bathroom, crowded with the small, single sink and bad yellow lighting. Nicola and Ben used to have a big, wide white marble bathroom countertop with two sinks and cupboards underneath filled with all sorts of goods. I pull open drawers and fish out her makeup, including the stuff I borrowed before. It isn’t half bad.

“Sit up there,” I say to Emmy and point to the counter space around the sink. She looks at me the whole time like I’m nuts.

“I thought you hated it when I wore makeup.”

I throw a couple of bags of makeup onto the counter, then a few brushes and hair products. “I don’t hate it. Your mom does. And she’s on vacation, remember?”

Emmy bursts out laughing. “Okay, whatever, loony. Is this, like, some coping mechanism from Dr. Constance?”

“Yep. Good. Exactly. That’s exactly what this is.”

“Okay, Mrs. Loony.”

“Seriously, you need to get to grips with this hair situation,” I say, sticking a mirror in her hands. “Is your hair going to grow back over that scar or not?”