Danica considers me like a viper considers a mouse, eyes attentive and muscles tight. My tiny heart races and races as I wonder if she’s going to strike, or if she’s going to let me live in her aquarium to play with another day.
“Well, thanks for doing that for me,” she finally says, and my brain short-circuits. Did Danica seriously just thank me for spending the night with her boyfriend? “Did you tell him the basket was from me?” she asks.
I nod.
“Did he like it?”
I nod again, and she smiles.
“Good. Now pick a color.”
I lift a random hand, point to a random bottle, and listen to Danica spend the next few minutes explaining why that color is horrible. She decides to go with the other, identical shade of pink, and I eventually escape to my room, where I plop down on the edge of my bed and stare at a pale indigo wall.
I’m Alice in Wonderland, shrinking to two inches tall as I try to solve riddles and believe impossible things.
Mike is in love with Danica, but he clings to me in his sleep.
Danica hates me, but she thanks me when I take care of her boyfriend.
I’m a good person, but my heart pounds every time I see my cousin’s boyfriend. Or hear my cousin’s boyfriend. Or think of my cousin’s boyfriend.
I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale a deep breath, trying to clear the caterpillar’s smoke from my head. I’m thinking of Red Queens and singing flowers and houses of cards—when my door flies open and the knob smashes the doorstopper right through the wall.
Danica stands there, her face a twisted mask of rage. “YOU LYING FUCKING SLUT!”
I gape at her.
“What the fuck did you do over there last night?!”
My heart hurtles over an impossible beat before careening onto its face. “What?” squeaks my dormouse voice.
“Don’t sit there playing innocent, you whore! What the fuck is this?!”
She shoves her phone in my face, and I read two texts with Mike’s name at the top.
I tried. It’s over.
Please tell Hailey she forgot her phone.
When I stare wide-eyed up at Danica, all of her delicate features are painted a deep, furious red. “I—”
“You fucked him!”
“I didn’t!” I argue. I’d stand up to defend myself, but Danica is practically on top of me.
“You are such a fucking liar! You’ve wanted him since the day you saw him! Admit it, you bitch!”
“There’s nothing to admit!” I scream as I stand up, forcing Danica back. “I didn’t sleep with your fucking boyfriend!”
“Then why is he breaking up with me?” she shouts back at me, her hands curling into fists at her sides. I should take them as a warning, but adrenaline is exploding through my veins.
“Maybe because you don’t fucking love him? Maybe because you’re a self-centered bitch who only cares about yourself!”
Danica’s mouth drops open like it’s about to come unhinged and swallow me whole. My body tenses in anticipation of the blow she’s about to deal me, but instead of punching me, she walks over to my desk.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” she orders, pushing my computer over with all of her might. It flies off the desktop and crashes onto the floor, taking my half-finished midterm exam files with it.
I stare at the computer and then at Danica, tears welling in my eyes.
“Are you fucking deaf?” she asks, grabbing a framed picture of my family from the desk and launching it at the wall behind me. The glass shatters into a million pieces behind my back. “Get the fuck out!” Danica screams, grabbing the side of my flimsy desk and flipping the entire thing over. A leg breaks off of it as it crashes onto the floor, taking my textbooks and folders with it. Papers scatter all over the hardwood, and I drop to my knees to collect them.
“You are such fucking trash,” Danica snarls as she stands over me. When I reach for my biology textbook, she kicks it out of my reach. “Wait until my dad hears about what a little slut you are. Bye-bye tuition.”
Tears drip onto the papers beneath my knees as I gather them with shaking hands. I don’t even know why I bother—when Danica’s dad stops paying for my tuition, none of it will matter.
“Say something, you bitch!” Danica screams.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” I swear again, my voice breaking on a sob, and Danica’s laughter fills my room.
She continues calling me names and trashing my room as I grab what I can and shove it into my backpack—school supplies, some clothes from drawers that she empties onto the floor, a few personal effects that I know she’ll destroy if I leave them behind. And then I grab my keys from the bed and walk toward the front door with Danica breathing down the back of my neck.
“Don’t you ever fucking come back here,” she warns as she kicks the backs of my heels. “Mike is going to realize what a worthless piece of hick shit you are, and he’s going to beg for me to take him back. And you know what? I will, Hailey. Because he is mine, and you are nothing. You’ll always be nothing.”
She stops at the door, standing on the stoop as my weak legs carry me to my car. I struggle to unlock my car door with trembling fingers, my vision blurred with unshed tears.
“Bye-bye, slut!” Danica screams loud enough for the neighbors to hear when I get into my car. I spare one last glance to find her waving at me with her fingers, a venomous grin on her face. Tears stream down my cheeks as I put the car into reverse and back away from our apartment.