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Alannah rose suddenly. “I think I’m going to need more wine for this.”
“That bad?” Molly asked.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m about to try and convince you Aster Bishop isn’t half bad, which is a place I never thought I’d find myself. I’m on team Bishop against my will. Wine feels appropriate. Roy?”
“Jesus, yes. What happened to us?”
Alannah gestured to Molly. “This one decided to introduce an arrogant prick to our inner circle and now we’ve become inexplicably attached. Our whole social group has been infiltrated. We’re even in deep with his friends at this point. I’ve texted Justine twice in the last two months. Pigs are flying.”
“Justine . . . Dawson?” Molly asked, crossing her legs beneath her. Justine Dawson was perhaps the most innocuous of Bishop’s legacy friends at Laburnum. She and Molly had rarely crossed paths, and when they had, Justine had always come across as intense and aloof, but otherwise mostly benign. Molly couldn’t conceive of circumstances where Justine and Alannah had any reason to text each other.
“The one and only,” Alannah said.
Molly had to put a mental pin in it; one thing at a time. And right now, that thing was her history with Bishop. “Okay, no distractions,” she said as Alannah handed her a glass of wine. “Let’s hear it. Convince me.”
“After you and Simon broke up,” Alannah began. “Things were . . .”
“Weird, they were very weird,” Roy finished.
“You really threw yourself into school. Well, more than usual. Which is saying something, as I’m sure you can imagine. I’d get home some nights and find you almost literally buried under books on the living room floor.” Alannah leaned, nudging Molly with a knowing smile. Alannah was well practiced in pulling Molly from a research spiral, her favorite unhealthy coping mechanism. “And then you had your—has anyone mentioned your leg?”
“My leg?” Molly glanced down. “The left one is a little sore sometimes. I thought that was just an aging thing.” Molly sought recollection somewhere inside her head. But there was nothing.
Roy winced and looked at Alannah. “Are we allowed to tell her?”
“You’d better tell me, with a setup like that.” Molly’s nerves suddenly swarmed.
“Look, last week Bishop told me I was, and I quote, ‘under no uncertain terms to overwhelm Molly with too much reminiscing, are we clear, Waters?’” Roy looked far too pleased with his impersonation of Bishop.
“And you’re going to listen to him?” Molly asked.
“Of course not,” Roy said like he’d never heard a more absurd question in his life. After a pause he added, “You broke it.”
“My leg?” Molly rubbed her sore shin, suddenly hyperaware of the texture beneath her fingertips, hidden muscle and viscera and bone. “How?”
Roy reached to rub the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact. “Here’s the thing. You were hit by a car on campus.” A pause. “Bishop’s car.” Another pause. “That he was driving.”
Molly nearly lunged from the sofa. Roy powered on despite Molly’s inarticulate sounds of confusion. “But, and I promise this is a very big but, the crosswalk signals malfunctioned and there were some landscaping issues, so he literally couldn’t see you. And you thought you were clear to walk, so . . .”
Alannah picked up where Roy trailed off. “He’s pretty good in a crisis, apparently. Like superhuman focus or something. Called the ambulance, stayed with you the whole time.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly began, doing everything she could not to scream in a home with two sleeping children. “Are you saying I somehow ended up tolerating, and then eventually liking Bishop after he committed vehicular violence against me?”
Alannah stifled a smile. “I promise it’s kind of funny in retrospect. Because it really wasn’t either of your faults. After that . . . well, you still bickered all the time, but he carried your stuff everywhere. Walked you to and from all your classes. Drove you to campus and physical therapy. Apparently his parents were convinced you’d sue the shit out of them, so I guess they sued the school instead. You should see how well maintained the grounds are now. Never a hedge missed.”
Molly looked between her two best friends, trying to find words. “That explains nothing,” she finally said. “Except that I may have experienced head trauma long before now.”
“It explains proximity,” Alannah insisted. “Which was all that was required for that chemistry you two have to take over.”
Roy made a mildly disgusted noise into his wine from across the room.
“Chemistry?” Molly was appalled at herself. “You’re saying I ignored every cruel thing he said and did to me while we were at Laburnum—plus him running me over—because we have chemistry?”
“Pretty sure he also begged for forgiveness. On his knees, if you know what I mean,” Alannah said wickedly.
The thought of Bishop on his knees sent a strange, hot sensation prickling up Molly’s spine that she refused to interrogate too closely. “Did I also ignore how he accused me of plagiarism at Laburnum?”
“I don’t . . . think it was that simple,” Roy said.
