Pretty Things Don't Break by Lauren Jayne

Author:Lauren Jayne [Jayne, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Made For Success Publishing
Published: 2016-08-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

AVM

During our graduation ceremony at my alternative high school, surrounded by the so-called fuck-ups, I felt more at home than I ever did at my high school. In our tiny ceremony, the teachers spoke about us as humans and cried at our triumphs. At our ceremony for regular high school, surrounded by over 800 faces, they raced over our mispronounced names and jammed a fake diploma in our hands just long enough to snap a photo.

Our school-sponsored graduation party was held at a water park and, had we not been shuttled there by bus and held hostage, we would have left immediately upon finding out where it was. Sitting on the cement steps among a group of twenty chatting voices, I drifted away. A paralyzing thought washed over me, “What next?” Racing to the finish line to graduate, this was the very first time the thought had crossed my mind. What would I do now? After my upcoming graduation trip to Waikiki with Carmen, I would figure it out.

I stood behind the counter at Pumpkins yogurt shop, a few minutes from Ben’s house, refilling the canisters in the glass case that held chopped candies, cookies, nuts and fruit. The boys had just left; when they came in high as kites, I’d make them sandwiches and let them come back and make yogurts topped with every sweet imaginable for free. Paul, my cool, ex-hippy boss, didn’t question how we were always out of food and never had money in the till; this was the job of the century.

One day, I looked up to see a vaguely familiar face: she had brown hair pulled up into a ponytail and was tall and thin with huge brown eyes, with brown lip liner making her thin lips look plumper.

“Hi, I’m Jody. Remember me?”

“Kind of.”

“I met you with Carmen; she brought you to my apartment on Green Lake a couple years ago.”

It snapped back to me. Carmen needed to drop something off and brought me with her. Jody’s apartment had been beautifully decorated, and she had the same poster of Marilyn Monroe on her wall that I had in my bedroom, except hers was matted and framed. Candles had lit Jody’s apartment as I’d watched her and Carmen split a bottle of wine.

“Hi. Do you want to taste anything?”

“Do you have the calorie info on the Atavi?

It was basically air whipped with a tiny bit of fruit juice. If you ate an entire pint, it was about 20 calories.

I handed her the nutrition info that Paul had left for me, and she read through it like she was scouring for ingredients she was deathly allergic to.

“OK, I’ll do a small.”

When she sat down to eat, she said, “Carmen’s in treatment again.”

“What?” The thought of someone else telling me something about my best friend made me sick. “What are you talking about?”

“She was driving drunk, and the judge told her she’d have to go to jail or treatment, so she’s gone. I happened to be running down by her house as she was leaving and she told me to tell you.

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