BadApple: kinda proves my point, doesn’t it?
ThatsLo: come on, I’m bored.
BadApple: u have 2 sisters n a brother
ThatsLo: I c them all the time. N will 4 the next 2 weeks. Plz? U O me a burger, anyway.
ThatsLo: Pllleeeeeeease???
A stupid, giddy smile forms on my face, and I bite my lip and sit up straighter, my fingers hovering above the keyboard. I feel this weird euphoria, like I get when I’m flirting or hanging out with over-the-top girls like Jolene. But Gloria doesn’t like girls, and she’s not flirting or exuberant. She’s bored. It takes me a second to realize what’s making me so giddy. It’s the thrill of connecting with someone, of feeling desirable. Not in a sexual way, but just being a person that someone wants to hang out with, someone worthy of human connection, whose company is desired.
It makes me feel ten kinds of pathetic that someone’s invitation to Faulkner’s lame-ass mall makes me want to squeal like a preteen who just got an answer to the fan mail she sent Just 5 Guys. Not that I was ever that lame. At least I’d never admit I was.
I haven’t been to the mall in five years, though. No one’s ever invited me to walk around the mall with them or even go shopping. Is this what having a friend is like? And if Lo is my friend, I owe Royal so much more than he knows. I feel like a kid who just woke up on Christmas and got the gift she’s always wanted but never really believed she’d get, like a pony or a dad.
ThatsLo: Rly? Ur ghosting me over a $5 burger?
BadApple: not ghosting u
ThatsLo: kidding anyway. I know u don’t have $5.
BadApple: fuck u. I’ll buy u a fucking burger. But aren’t u afraid ppl will c u w/ me? I’m a skank, remember?
ThatsLo: Ur a dolce girl.
BadApple: so suddenly I’m not a whore or slut or trash???
ThatsLo: exactly. Royal would never date a skank.
BadApple: We r not dating
ThatsLo: He took u 2 Cliff’s. That’s where guys take girls they want to impress.
I start to ask how she knows, but I think better of it. Our school is a fucking cesspool of gossip. If she thinks I’m cool because I’m with Royal, I don’t want to shatter her illusion just yet. I’m not about to tell her that Royal was definitely not trying to impress me, since he pretty much forced me to do anal afterwards just to prove a point and degrade me. Just like he took me to a fancy restaurant to prove that he owns me, that he can treat me as well as he feels like at any given moment, because I’m his plaything.
But I don’t want to think about that right now, or how pissed I still get when I think about it. I want to enjoy this moment—the surreal day that I go to the mall with Gloria Walton.
ThatsLo: it doesn’t matter what u were b4. Once ur a dolce girl, ur past is erased. Ur elite now.
BadApple: that’s fucked up
ThatsLo: don’t question it. Enjoy it. I’ll pick u up in 30.
BadApple: k
I finish my ramen noodles and get ready, finding myself agonizing over what to wear more than I do when I’m going to school and the whole student body will be judging, or even when I go meet Royal. This feels like a test, and I want to impress. I even wear makeup. By the time I leave the house, I’m feeling confident as fuck, like I’m looking good and worthy of walking around next to a Walton.
“Is that your dad’s truck?” Gloria asks as she pulls away from the curb.
“My mom’s,” I say, buckling in. “No dad.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, giving me that pitying look that makes me roll my eyes. I forget there are people who think that’s a tragedy.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I never knew him, so I don’t miss him. I barely remember that other people have two parents.”
“Maybe that’s lucky,” she says, turning out of the shitty part of town.
“Royal said something along those lines,” I say, remembering when he said he wished he didn’t know his dad. That’s fucking sad when I think about it. Yeah, his dad is a creeper, but my mom’s no gem, and I’d never say that about her.