The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis

Author:Mindy McGinnis [McGinnis, Mindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062982445
Google: KbHmDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2021-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

Felicity

Fuck you is all I can hear in my head, and it’s coming out of my mouth. That is not smart, but I can’t stop it. My therapist said a lot about accepting the things I can’t change, and one of those is that Tress’s parents are gone. She also said I should stop beating myself up for everything—the things I did do, but also things I didn’t do. There are a thousand reasons Tress isn’t going to college, and she can’t hang any of them on me.

So I did what my therapist told me to do. I stood up for myself.

Now I’m so exhausted I can’t even do that. Instead, I’m hanging from manacles after screaming obscenities at the person who has me entirely at her disposal and just added three more inches to my rapidly closing tomb.

I need to fire my therapist.

Tress has got the look on her face that I know means trouble. My explosion is over. Maybe forty-five seconds of anger—righteous anger, I will give myself that—is gone now. And for my troubles I’ve put Tress into a mood that will take me hours to talk her out of . . . if I can stay conscious for that long.

It’s become a question.

She didn’t exactly give me a love tap with that brick, and the few beers I’d downed with no food aren’t doing me any favors, either. Whatever is going on with my gut is not improving, and my arms are beginning to cramp from being over my head for . . . how long? An hour? Three? I raise my head, spots of light exploding in my vision as I search for her among them, my head swimming.

I find her, focus hard on her face, pale and tight under the bare bulb. Her jaw is set and the little muscles along her jawline are flickering. Why am I trying to soften her up? It’s useless. Better to take a route she’ll respect, at least. Let’s get this over with. I spit. The glob, which tastes of blood, lands somewhere near my feet.

“Okay, so let’s just do this,” I say. “What do you want to talk about now? Somebody you had a crush on never noticed you, is that on me? How about that broken arm you had in eighth grade? Totally my fault, right? Obviously, anything that ever went wrong in your life comes back to me so what’s the next topic?”

Tress tosses the trowel into her mortar bucket, drops of liquid concrete flying out around her. “Walking in the rain,” she says.

And it’s not some poetic allusion. I know exactly what she’s talking about.

And it’s not good.

Upstairs, the clock chimes.

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