Page 59 of Secondhand Soul

“Half. If you’re cold during the day, put on some pants—and work at the library. It’s nice there. It’s a nice place. It’s a fucking nice town. I don’t belong here, but I know—”

“Hey, if you don’t, then I sure don’t. You never did anything wrong. You never hurt anyone.”

“I hurt people who deserved it.”

“Like me.”

“No. Or... Wait, do you mean I hurt you, or you never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, either?”

“Huh?” Victoria looks at me with a puzzled frown. “Oh. Yes. To either. Or both.”

“So... So you could technically stay here. And just stay the hell away from me,” I hear myself saying, and then it’s my turn to look surprised and confused.

Victoria and I share that expression.

“Wait. Did you say that, or am I hallucinationating? Hallucinagationing? Hallcuin... Did I dream that?” Victoria asks, blinking.

“Are you sure that bottle wasn’t poisoned?” I demand, retrieving it from where I dropped it.

“Had a migraine again today. Took some of my pills. They don’t mix with alcohol, maybe. Or twelve hours of screen time. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. Emily wouldn’t have wanted her mom to do this to herself.”

I brace for the slap. The outrage.

I don’t know how to handle the way she goes limp in my grasp, sinks down, and curls into a ball. There are still faint bruises on one leg.

“Don’t say her name. You don’t care about her.”

“I... Of course I do.” I can’t believe it, but I’m awkwardly patting her head now.

“She’d be ashamed of me. Do you ever wish you could rewind your life? Sometimes I think to myself, ‘What if I had just told Frank yes?’ He wouldn’t have hit me. I would have thrown up on him, maybe, but that’s okay.”

“Or, you would have thrown up on him, and he would have hit you. Maybe right in the stomach. Or the head. Maybe you’d be a goner.”

Victoria looks up at me. “Okay.”

Okay?

There is nothing okay about a world without Victoria in it.

As soon as that thought hits, I get an idea. A bad idea. But maybe one that will work, and maybe, just maybe, one that will let me move past the roadblock I have stuck in my head and heart when it comes to this girl.

I’m not saying the roadblock isn’t reasonable, but there’s no denying that I want to get past it, even as angry as I am.

“Pazcuso call you again?” I ask.

“No. I wouldn’t answer if he did. Well, no. Maybe I would. To keep him off my back for longer. I know one day I’ll have to answer to him, and then—”

“What if I had a really bad idea, but one that might work?”

“What idea?”

I lick my lips. It sounds like a horrible idea. A really dangerous idea. If I weren’t a trustworthy person, this idea would be one that only a fool should listen to.

Victoria isn’t a fool, but I think she’s desperate.

“Pazcuso won’t come after you if he thinks you’re dead. What if we send him some proof that you are?”