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I didn’t touch that one. I avoided the Dolce girls as intentionally as I avoided their friends and the Dolces themselves, and it wasn’t just because they were territorial, though they’d never claim a girl as an official girlfriend. Gloria and I had seen each other in enough compromising positions for it to be better if we didn’t speak or even make eye contact.
“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “They probably can’t get in, since your pussy’s a demon mouth. Is it lined with entire rows of teeth like a shark’s mouth, or does it just have fangs like a snake?”
“I’m not talking to you about my pussy.”
“So which one of the D-boys is missing a D? Or did you get all of them?”
She huffed. “What are you talking about now?”
“If it’s not lined with teeth, it must be like dipping your dick in liquid nitrogen,” I mused. “A flash-freeze type situation.”
Gloria scoffed and kicked her toe against the dumpster. “Crawl back in your trash can and leave me alone.”
“You know, I heard a rumor Royal couldn’t get it up,” I said. “I figured it was just gossip, but maybe he doesn’t have anything left but a stump. You just snapped those jaws shut and bit his dick right off. I have to say, I’m impressed. Nice work.”
I held out a hand to give her knuckles.
“Sounds like someone’s projecting,” she said with a smirk, ignoring my hand. “Everyone knows you don’t have a dick.”
That rumor did go around last year, not that it mattered much by then. Not a girl would touch me by the time that gossip made the rounds, and I spent most of junior year reeling with shock, not worrying about my reputation. I was busy trying to keep myself alive and recovering from burns that made me wish they’d just killed me; watching them slowly and systematically drive my sister insane; taking my father to the hospital when they cut his dick off; taking myself to the hospital when they cut my finger off; and taking my mother to the hospital when she swallowed a bottle of pills. Whether people believed I had a penis or not didn’t even register on the list of things to be concerned about.
“Eh, if you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t be able to get it up, either,” I said after a pause.
I may not have said more than a dozen words to Gloria before today, but I knew she was dangerous. She was their minion and therefore my enemy. She may not have held the knife that inflicted the wounds, but she was loyal to the men who did. She fucked those psychos even after everything they’d done. And sure, she wasn’t there for all of it and probably didn’t even know about most of it, but she’d seen enough to make her guilty.
Then again, so had I.
I looked away, remembering why I didn’t talk to her, the reason I’d never spoken to her. There was a day, at the start of last year, when I walked into the school’s basement, where our secret society met. I used to be a member, and fool that I was, I thought it mattered that I’d sworn an oath to the Midnight Swans. I thought I’d always be one of them. It was in the rules, the very foundation of the society.
Once a Swan, always a Swan.
But the Dolces obliterated that along with everything else. Some of my family didn’t agree with my decision to step back and let them have it. They thought we should all fight to our last breath, and it was my responsibility to make a stand as the last Darling at Willow Heights. But they weren’t there that day. They hadn’t seen what I’d seen.
I decided that day that I was done with all of it. Done fighting a losing battle, done playing a game they’d long ago won. Done trying to be a part of the football team, the social scene, or the Swans. I hadn’t gone back there since that day, but I knew Gloria had.
She chose their side, and I chose mine. She joined them and became a part of the inner circle. I left it to her and chose solitude.
“Hey, dirtbag.”
I jerked my head up, startled awake by the unwelcome intrusion of a voice. Dull light filtered into the space between the dumpster and the building where I was resting my head. I looked up to see the sky was already a washed-out grey.
Gloria stood over me, arms crossed, the bubble toe of her black boot tapping. “I’d let you sleep, since this is probably where you usually spend your nights, but you’re kind of in my way.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, letting my eyes fall closed again. “I knew I shouldn’t have had that last beer.”
“God, you’re such a failure of a human being,” she said. “Can you at least let me out? I don’t want to step over you and risk touching you. I might catch something.”
I sighed and clambered to my feet and dusted off my ass, which was cold and numb from sitting on the concrete so long.
For once, Gloria didn’t run her mouth. She just waited for me to step out from behind the dumpster, and then she edged out too. I glanced around the parking lot, but it was quiet now, the game long over. A few cars passed on the road, moving slow, their drivers still waking up with their first cup of coffee. Not even factory workers were here this early on a Sunday morning.
“Nice ride,” I said, nodding to the shiny green Mustang, the lone car in the lot.
“Thanks,” Gloria said, tucking her fingers into the front pockets of her tight Levi’s. She was in a tank even though it was Halloween, and her bare arms were covered in goosebumps. Instead of hugging herself and letting her teeth chatter, she was trying to look casual and not show that she was cold. My brain must have been half asleep, because for some reason, I found it cute as hell.
“Take this,” I said, slipping my arms out of my flannel and passing it to her.
She stared at it like I’d just offered her the decomposing skin off a roadkill. “I’m not wearing your shirt.”
