She purred. He felt her eyelashes tickle his chest. She must have opened her eyes.
“You awake?” he said.
“Mmm-hmm.”
She lifted her head and turned to face him. She smiled.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
One look, and she could dissolve him until he was nothing but a shadow in the shape of a boy.
“Wish we had something to eat,” Lucy said.
“Well, darn it, I forgot to go to the store.”
“That’s dumb,” she said through another smile.
“You’re dumb.”
He squeezed her and she squeaked, and he wanted to hear it again and again. Their clothes were strewn over their naked bodies like blankets.
“What time is it?” Lucy said.
Will groaned and pulled her closer. “Who cares?”
“Nobody knows where I am. I should’ve told Sophia. They might get worried.”
“Really? What do the Sluts look like when they get worried?”
Without missing a beat, Lucy bore her clenched teeth at him with wild, furious eyes. She looked like a constipated piranha. Will cracked up. Lucy shook with laughter, trying to hold the face until she couldn’t anymore. She covered her mouth and snorted a giggle. Will put his forehead to hers, she settled into him.
“I’m serious, what time is it?” Lucy said.
Will sighed and found his phone in his pants, which were laid over Lucy’s calves. The screen was shattered, but it was still in one piece. He clicked it on. The upper corners of the display were discolored, pinkish, and the rest was littered with dead pixels.
“Eleven a.m.,” Will said.
“What’s that?”
Lucy was looking at Will’s phone, the screen still illuminated. She sat up, holding his and her clothes to her front. She took the phone out of his hand to get a better look at his phone’s wallpaper. It was a dim snapshot of the Loners gathered around the TV he’d stolen from the Freaks and hung in the Stairs lounge. Lucy sat in the middle, in her pale blue dress, looking back at the camera and sticking out her tongue.
“I don’t remember this picture,” she said, staring at the pic, the phone’s blue light gleaming off her bare shoulder. She seemed mesmerized by her former self.
“It was a while ago.”
“Do I…,” she said, still puzzling over the picture. “Do I seem different to you now?”
“You definitely look different.”
“Yeah, but… am I different?”
“You mean aside from eating bricks for breakfast and punching babies in the face or whatever you Sluts do?”
“Hey, I’m serious!” she said, and gave him a hard slap on the chest. He laughed.
“No, not really. You’re still the same.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly let down.
“But, I like that person. I’m having a great time with that person.”
“I know. Right,” she said.
He’d upset her, and he wasn’t sure what he’d said wrong.
“I’m gonna go,” she said. Lucy started gathering up her clothes.
Will sat up. “Come on, don’t go. The Sluts can wait.”
“It’s not them,” she said. “You’ve got to eat eventually. I’m going to go to the market and stock up for you.”
She pulled on her clothes. Will looked at Lucy standing above him. Her short red hair tousled. Sleeveless white T-shirt, torn all to shreds with a drawing of a chain saw on the front. Tight, burned-up jeans that showed off taut muscles that Will was sure she didn’t have before.
“By yourself? I should go with you.”
Will stood and pulled on his pants.
“Will, stop,” she said. “You know you can’t leave.”
Will was afraid of Gates, but he was more afraid of letting Lucy leave. Things were so perfect up here, in their third-floor hideaway. This little place of their own. Outside, anything could go wrong.
“I’ll come up with a disguise—”
“Will, Gates is crazy, you told me yourself. You know you have to stay here. That’s the whole point.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I can handle myself,” she said. She stepped up onto the copier to climb into the vent.
“Well, that’s something,” Will said.
“What?” she said from above him.
“The old Lucy never would have headed out alone like this.”
Lucy smiled.
“I guess she wouldn’t.”
She knelt down until they were face-to-face and she kissed him. He’d done something right.
“I’ll be back later,” she said, still smiling. “Take care of Minnie.”
Lucy hurried down the hall, on her way to the market. She was desperate for a bathroom after spending all night in the copier room, but still she couldn’t help feeling light on her feet. Alone, she was finally able to really enjoy what had happened. The push and pull of the pleasure. How alive her body felt after it was over. The warmest, deepest night’s sleep she’d gotten in a long time. She was maybe the happiest she’d ever been. Once she was in Will’s arms, she knew that, after all her turmoil over who she’d lose her virginity to, and whether she would, she’d ended up in the right place, with the right person. Her first time had been perfect.
Lucy pushed open the door to the girls’ bathroom. This particular bathroom had become a sort of public works project for all girls, initiated by the Sluts. They had installed new stall walls and stall doors that had long ago been destroyed, so that girls from any gang could pee in peace. Over only one sink, a mirror had been reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle out of odd, mismatching shards. Another mirror was in the works soon, sponsored by the Nerd girls. And girls from every gang chipped in when they could to supply toilet paper. It wasn’t a perfect system, but today was Lucy’s lucky day. A full roll was waiting for her in her stall. Lucy closed her stall door and began to unbuckle her jeans.
A conversation in the hall, just outside the bathroom, made her pause. Some girls were arguing. She heard the door open. One of the voices cut through the others; it was higher, sharper, more vicious. It was unmistakably Hilary.
“Watch the door, girls. Don’t slouch, Tabitha. No one needs to see your gut,” Hilary said.
Lucy very quietly stepped up onto the closed toilet seat, and crouched there.
“Nobody comes in here until I come out,” Hilary said. “You included.”
She heard the noise of the hall quiet. Hilary must have shut the door. Lucy could hear her footsteps. Lucy lowered her hand to the handle of her knife and wrapped her fingers around it. She waited for Hilary to throw open the stall door. It didn’t happen.
Hilary walked away from the stalls. Through the space between the stall door and stall wall, Lucy had a narrow line of sight on her old gang leader. Hilary looked at her distorted reflection in the mirror mosaic. She placed her little white purse on the edge of the sink, leaned forward, and began to examine her teeth.
Lucy stepped down from the toilet, quiet as a cat. She crept to the gap and pushed her eye closer to get a wider view. Lucy nearly yelped when, in the mirror, she saw Hilary pull one of her teeth out.
“Oh my god,” Lucy mouthed silently.
The tooth had a strip of duct tape along the back of it. Hilary panned her head back and forth, examining herself. Her lips were peeled back to reveal a gaping black space on her upper row of teeth, to the right of her front incisors. Just that one, empty, gummy arch between the otherwise perfect row of white Chiclets made Hilary look sickly and sad. She tongued the gap.