“Wanna smoke?” she asks, waving the pack at me.
“Okay.”
“Really?” she asks, smiling wide. Her hair has grown out, so only the bottom few inches are a faded blue.
I shrug. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I’m already regretting it, my body telling me to crawl back into the warm, welcoming nest of my bed and sink back into the hazy half-sleep oblivion of my life. Annoyance flares inside me. Why is Blue coming to the window? She probably just wants what everyone else wants—gossip.
I trudge outside, where she’s standing by the truck. “Can you take me for a ride?” she asks shyly.
I shake my head. “Didn’t bring the keys.”
“Oh,” she says, her face falling. “Well, do you want to go for a walk?”
I shrug. She takes that as a yes and starts walking, and even though I want to go back in the house and fall facedown into my bed, I shuffle along after her, resentment growing with each step. August in Arkansas is hot as the streets of hell, and it’s so humid you can’t even sweat to cool off. I wish I hadn’t come out, that I was in my own bed in the feeble air-conditioning that Mr. D paid for. I’m sure he was the one who put the thousand dollars toward our electric bill, just as he was the one who paid our water. I should be grateful, but I only feel used.
Blue slows to walk beside me, handing me a cigarette. She lights up before passing me the lighter. I light up, too. The bitter taste of tobacco invades my mouth, sharp but still familiar after months without. I inhale long and deep, letting it sink into my lungs. A rush of dizziness races through me, my fingers shaking with the high.
We reach the end of the block and turn right, toward the old white church and cemetery.
“I know I sound like a teacher right now, but, like, are you in some kind of trouble?” Blue asks at last.
“Haven’t you heard?” I say flatly. “I’m a whore now.”
“I heard a rumor that you were making Pearl, but damn. You got that for fucking someone? I mean, that’s a really nice truck, Harper. Most people only get, like, a hundred bucks or something.”
“Guess I’m a high-class whore.”
She’s quiet as we continue to the end of the street, where there’s nowhere to go but the church. I’d probably burst into flame if I stepped through a church’s doors, so I stop walking. Blue moves through the gravel lot and opens the cemetery gate, leaving it open for me as she steps inside. There are a few cars parked by the fence. Beyond the cemetery, a huge oak sprawls its branches wide, as if embracing the last streaks of orange in the deep blue of the evening sky.
I wonder if the Phantom is on his roof, watering his tomatoes.
I sigh and follow Blue, irritated by my thoughts. She stops at a plain headstone with a single bunch of plastic flowers on it, now bleached an indiscriminate color by the sun.
“My dad,” she says, ashing her cigarette on the grave.
I nod and drag hard on mine. “At least you know where he is.”
A guy at a grave under the oak’s branches stands from where he was kneeling and tosses back his shiny blond hair. There’s something familiar about him, and for a second, I think it’s Colt, but when he turns our way, I see that it’s a football player from Faulkner—thefootball player. I remember dropping Lindsey at the bottom of his driveway, and how scared I was to go back and face Royal, knowing he’d see it as a betrayal that I’d helped a Darling. I should have listened to that fear.
Chase jerks his chin at us in a nod as he passes our row of headstones, but he doesn’t say anything. He probably doesn’t remember me, and Blue isn’t the type to draw attention.
“I know you dropped out of school,” Blue says after he’s gone. “Even I wouldn’t do that. You used to be so obsessed with it. You’re smart, Harper.”
I sigh. “You really do sound like a teacher.”
“No, I mean, you’re smart enough that I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” she says, holding up a hand. “If you could get that fancy truck out of it…”
“Then I must be good?” I ask. “What, you want sex tips? Twenty-five hacks to make him cum in under a minute?”
“No.” She watches me from the corner of her eye as she drags on her cigarette. “But if your guy has friends…”
“You’d whore yourself out for a truck?”
She shrugs, avoiding my eyes.
I know I’m being a bitch. I’ve fucked guys for nothing. For less than nothing. I didn’t even get a choice out of it, let alone a truck. I said no, and they took it anyway. They didn’t care about what I wanted any more than a guy paying cares what his whore likes. Why not take some control over it, sell it like the commodity it is? It’s too late for me. They’ve already taken what they wanted and left me to die. But Blue’s not a store that’s been ransacked, everything of value stolen, leaving it barren and worthless to looters.