“I’m fine,” he said.
“You haven’t seemed fine lately.”
God, why was she saying this? She could just turn him down instead of keep reminding him that he was a broken person.
“Same as always,” he said, working hard to keep a lid on any angry tone.
“Will, I think… We need to get realistic—”
“I am being realistic. David and me had a whole business before the Loners. We did fine as just two people.”
“You barely pulled it off, and that’s when things were stable. Who knows how reliable these parents will be?”
That was a bullshit excuse. If it were David asking her to go live in the elevator, just the two of them, she’d be there in a second.
“Are you joining another gang?” Will said.
Lucy opened her mouth. It hung open for a moment and then she closed it.
“I’ve thought about it…,” she said. “I mean, wasn’t being in a gang the whole point of forming the Loners? Isn’t that what we fought for?”
He wasn’t going to beg her. He wouldn’t sink that low. He really wanted to beg. He was ravenous to beg.
“… And I know you probably think that nobody wants you because of… what happened,” she said.
“You’re right,” Will said.
“But that’s not true,” Lucy said, pouncing. “I mean, okay, you’ve got a lot of enemies. The Freaks and Varsity. And the Skaters probably haven’t forgiven you for their boards, but—I talked to some Geek who said they’re desperate for people to join, and Zachary hasn’t seemed to hold a grudge about the Loners putting him in a cage.”
The Geeks wouldn’t have Will. Not after what happened in the quad. No one would. Lucy was fooling herself. She needed to believe it. He guessed she’d never forgive herself if she bailed on poor, little, epileptic Will.
“Geeks, huh? That seems like a good gang for a coward,” Will said.
Lucy stared at him, confused.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing. I’m just saying, that’s what you are.”
“Why are you talking like this?”
“Think about it. You always hide. In the Pretty Ones. Behind David. Why not behind Zachary?”
“I’m trying to help you, Will.”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
“Don’t say this stuff. You don’t mean it!”
“Why are you here?” Will said. “Why don’t you just walk to the auditorium right now? You probably have your bag packed. Am I right?”
Lucy didn’t answer. She looked down.
“Then go,” he said. “Get the fuck out of here. I don’t want you around me.”
“No!” she said. “You can’t do this. I won’t leave you.”
She cried. She was going to hate him, but that was better. If she hated him, she might be able to forget about him.
“Do yourself a favor…”
She looked up, cheeks wobbling, eyelashes clumped by tears. “… and fuck off,” Will said.
She slapped him. She disappeared up the stairs, crying, then came back down, with a small, half-full backpack over her shoulder, and her phone lit up in her hand. She walked right past him and her phone’s glow faded off down the stairs toward the ground floor exit.
If he was going to go after her, this was his chance. To take it back. There was still a window, he hadn’t heard the door open or shut yet.
Will struggled to his feet. He let the crinkly blanket fall off him as he trudged to the top of the stairs. Down past the darkness of the stairwell he saw Lucy standing at the open door, her cell phone shining on her face. She looked up at him. If he persuaded her to stay, she’d only leave later. He could never be what she needed.
“Don’t come back! You hear me?” Will shouted. “I don’t want your pity!”
She slammed the door shut and left. Will walked back to the sink fire and sat. He tried to let the flames warm him. They wouldn’t last long. The cold of the empty Stairs would win in the end. Will had better get used to it. He was alone for good.
11
“I WANT TO BE A SLUT,” LUCY SAID.
Violent looked surprised. She stood in the doorway to the cafeteria, holding the door open. There was an ugly Slut beside her, who was topless. These girls were a marvel. Even their breasts were aggressive. Violent looked different in the middle of the night. Her red hair was a mess, and the stitched seam of her pillow had left its imprint across her cheek. She wore a XXL boy’s black T-shirt, full of holes and rips. Without her tape eyebrows, her sinister makeup, and all the spiky armor, Violent almost looked nice, like a mom. A mom with no eyebrows.
“Violent, I know I missed the deadline on your offer, but—”
Violent raised her hand to quiet her. She pulled Lucy close and wrapped her in a sturdy hug. It took Lucy completely by surprise.
“Ssh,” Violent said. “Come in. We can talk in the morning. Right now it’s time to sleep.”
That was good by Lucy. She’d never felt so drained. The empty cafeteria was quiet. It smelled faintly of berries. Everything was clean and organized, every weapon hanging in its place on the far wall, like the pegboard wall of tools her dad used to have in their garage. The main floor of the cafeteria had been cleared away. The dining hall tables were broken down and stashed up against one wall. The beige plastic cafeteria chairs were stacked high next to them.
“Lips, get her a mattress,” Violent said to the topless girl. Lips. It was a joke of a nickname. The girl barely had any lips at all. They were just thin, flat strips of skin. It was almost like her face stopped and her mouth began without an intermediary step. Lips nodded to Violent and walked off.
Violent led Lucy toward the kitchen without a word. She stopped at the doorway and took her shoes off. Lucy figured she should do the same. She put her stuff down and slipped off her white canvas sneaks that had served her for so long. It was a lie to call them white. She couldn’t wash them as well as David used to, and even he couldn’t get them white. They were gray and speckled with black like an Oreo milk shake. She put them in a cabinet, next to where Violent put hers.
Lucy followed Violent into the heat of the kitchen, where Sluts lay sleeping all over the floor. They were nestled in around each other like jigsaw puzzle pieces. The only light in the room came from the oven door windows, receding rectangles of glowing red.
Violent led Lucy through the obstacle course of bodies. From what she could make out, most of them wore boxers and T-shirts with the sleeves torn off. Even that seemed too hot to sleep in. The heat from the ovens pressed in all around her like a sauna. The purr of the gas ovens softened all other sounds. Violent reached a clear spot of floor by the dishwashers, far from the ovens, but still entirely warm.
“You can sleep here tonight,” Violent said in a low hush.
Lips arrived silently and dropped a man-shaped mattress on Lucy’s spot of floor. The mattress was a pair of khaki pants and a long-sleeve denim shirt that had been sewn together and stuffed with pink wall insulation, which puffed out where the seams had come apart. Lucy lowered her bag to a spot right next to the mattress.
Lucy opened her arms to hug Violent again. Instead, Violent patted her shoulder and walked off with Lips.
“Okay,” she said, mostly to herself. “Okay, then…”
She guessed that was it. This was her gang now. She lowered herself down on her headless, handless, footless mattress man. She scanned the nearby faces, trying to see if she recognized any of them. Not a one. She was sleeping with a bunch of strangers. What had she gotten herself into? Was she so desperate to prove Will wrong that she’d actually thought for a second she could be a Slut? When she knocked on the cafeteria door she felt like she knew what she was doing, she thought she wanted everything Violent had described about being a Slut. Now she feared that she was not like these girls, that she would not be accepted here, and she wouldn’t have what it takes to be one of them.