Page 162 of The Initial Insult

“Hello?” I’m breathless after scrambling for it, the security light from the animal pens lighting up my room.

“Tress?”

There’s a sob, a broken noise. It’s Felicity. She’s not okay.

“Where are you?” My heart is in my throat, and I’m up, pulling on shorts even though I’m not wearing underwear, throwing a sweatshirt on with no bra, rifling through the mess on the kitchen table for Cecil’s keys.

I am coming. I will save you. Everything will be okay.

“He’s seeing other girls,” she says, her voice dull now.

“What?” I stop, watch an empty beer bottle roll off the table, breaking on the floor.

“Patrick,” she says. “I slept with him, and I guess I thought, I don’t know . . . I thought maybe he was, like, actually into me, or whatever.”

“Where are you?” I ask again.

“What?” She sniffs. “I’m at home.”

At home. In her house. On a nice street. With her family.

“Why are you calling me?” I ask, my voice hard as hell this time.

“What? I . . .” She trails off, confused.

“Why are you calling me?” I repeat.

“You said . . . you said your number was the same. You said call if I needed anything. You said call . . . anytime.”

“If you need drugs, Felicity,” I seethe into the phone. “Call me if you need drugs.”

“Oh,” she says, small and soft.

“Anytime,” I say.

And hang up.

Chapter 62

Tress

“He’s bad news,” I tell Felicity, two years too late.

I should’ve said it on the path, I should’ve said it at the first party I saw him sniffing around her. I should’ve said it. I didn’t. That’s on me. And maybe her pill problem, too.

“You think?” she asks, the words slurred, the laughter that follows unhinged.

“I always thought . . .” My voice isn’t strong, either, the thoughts slippery, the consonants and vowels needed to bring them out into the world something I can’t conjure. “I always thought maybe you and Hugh . . .” I finally manage.

“Really?” Her voice brightens a second, like maybe it’s an interesting topic. “I mean . . . I guess . . . I always thought . . . maybe you and Hugh.”

Chapter 63

Felicity

Tress starts laughing, and there’s an echoing answer from upstairs, weaker now. I don’t know if it’s because sounds have been going in and out for me in the past few minutes or if people are dropping off upstairs.

“No.” She shakes her head, spinning the trowel in her good hand. The other one is turning purple, the tape she bound her wound with much too tight. “No,” she repeats. “Not me and Hugh.”