Robin Wasserman - Frozen

Terra shrugged. “Since when do you need me to tell you what’s wiped?”

Zo found me later, sitting in a corner, head tipped back toward the ceiling as if I were zoned. Anyone who knew anything knew that I wasn’t in the business of getting zoned anymore, but it saved me from having to stare blankly at a wall or, worse, to make conversation.

Finally someone I could blame. “I can’t believe you let me leave the house looking like this.”

“What?” she asked innocently, perching on the side of the couch. “Like me?”

“You knew better.”

“You’re right,” she said. “So why didn’t you? Lia Kahn always knows what’s cool, right? Lia Kahn decides what’s cool. So what’s your problem?”

I wanted to slap her.

“What’s yours?” I asked instead. “If you knew retro was over, why come here like this ?” I jerked my head toward her clothes, which were only slightly less gross than my own. But she was acting as if she didn’t care that the look was wiped, and no one else seemed to care either. Like the rules were somehow different for her.

“Because maybe Zoie Kahn decides what’s cool too,” she said.

“You can decide whatever you want. It doesn’t count if no one agrees. There’s no such thing as a majority of one.”

“Yeah, one’s the loneliest number, so I heard,” she said. “Two is working out a lot better for me these days.”

“Two?” I scanned the room, as if Zo’s new guy, if he really existed, would bear the mark on his face. “Who?”

She mouthed a curse, as if she’d broken something. “No one.”

This was getting interesting. “Who?” Zo and I had never been the kind of sisters who stayed up all night, giggling in the dark about pounding hearts and stolen kisses. But she’d ruined enough of my dates with her tattling, her teasing, and, as she got older, her eavesdropping and clumsy stabs at blackmail. She was, and always had been, addicted to information about my personal life; the more personal, the better.

Karma’s a bitch.

“I told you, no one. ”

“I’ll find out eventually,” I said. “You might as well tell me.”

“Instead of wasting your time on my love life, maybe you should focus on your own,” Zo snapped.

“Meaning?”

Zo tapped her wrist and I noticed that, like Auden, she was wearing a watch. Maybe he was her mystery man. Lame and lamer—they’d make a good match. “It’s one a.m.: Do you know where your boyfriend is?”

“He’s around.” But nowhere I could see. I wondered if he’d gone upstairs without me, if he was waiting for me to find him. Or if he wasn’t alone.

“He always is.” Zo scowled and stood up.

“Seriously, why do you hate him so much?”

“I don’t.”

“You’re usually a better liar that that.”

“Believe whatever you want,” she said.

I wanted to ask her something else. I wanted to ask her why she suddenly hated me .

I didn’t want the answer.

“Later,” she said, giving me a bitter half wave. “Terra’s got some new boots she wants to show me. Weird, isn’t it?” Zo smirked. “The way all your friends suddenly want my opinion?”

“They’re just bored and looking for something different to play with,” I shot back. “You’re like their little retro mascot . Their token freak.”

Zo shrugged. “Why would they need me for that? They’ve got you.”

Venom released, she wandered off; I stayed where I was. I knew I should be circulating, but all I wanted to do was hide. Staying in place seemed like an acceptable compromise. And when I felt a pair of hands squeeze my shoulders, and a chin rest on the top of my head, I knew I’d made the right choice. I lifted my arms, let him grab my hands and pull me to my feet. “About time.” I turned around. “What took you so—”

I yanked my hands away.

Cass’s mouth breather leered. “Feels just like real hands,” he slurred. “Dipper thought they’d be, like, stiff or some shit like that, but…” He slithered his fingers across my waist. I knocked them away. “Feels real enough to me.”

Cass had always liked them dumb and pretty.

“You wanna know what’s stiff?” He lunged toward me, resting his forearms on my shoulders, linking his fingers together behind my neck when I tried to squirm away.

“Fuck off.”

He laughed. “I’d rather fuck something else,” he said. “And I do mean thing . Come on.” He plucked at my neckline. “I hear you’ve got all your parts under there, just like a real girl.”

“I am a real girl, asshole.”

“You want to prove it?”

I tried to knock his arms away, but they were too thick and sturdy, and the more I strained against them, the tighter his grip.

“Just because Walker’s too chickenshit to take a test drive—”

This wasn’t a dark and empty path winding through the woods, and he wasn’t some Faither lunatic convinced that God had told him to screw my brains out—I had no reason to be afraid. But I wasn’t thinking through reasons. I was thinking about this loser’s grimy hands crawling all over the body— my body—and his breath misting across my face and his puny dick twitching at some fantasy of dragging me off and shoving himself inside me. All of which added up to not thinking at all. I punched him in the stomach.

“Bitch!” he wheezed, doubled over.

That’s when Cass finally decided to show up. “What the hell, Lia?”

“She’s psycho,” the drooling pervert hissed, looping an arm around Cass. “Total nut job. Got pissed I wouldn’t do her.”

If the mouth had come equipped with saliva, I would have spit at him. “You sleazy piece of crap! Cass, come on.” She was clinging to him, her arm tucked around his waist. “The perv was hitting on me.”

The loser snorted. “Right. Liked I’d want it when I have you .” He nuzzled his face into Cass’s neck. She let him.

Terra popped up beside them, her boy in tow. The two guys smacked hands while Terra glared at me. “Trouble?”

“Trouble for Cass,” I said. “She’s dating an asshole.”

“You were right about her,” Terra’s guy whispered loudly.

I turned on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means wake up, Lia,” Terra snapped. “This isn’t like before. You don’t get to have every boy in the world drooling after you. Not anymore.”

Cass rolled her eyes. “And contrary to popular belief—excuse me, your belief—they weren’t all after you then, either.”

“I never thought that—”

“Right.” Cass choked out a laugh. “And you weren’t hitting on my boyfriend just now.”

“Why would I want this assface when I’ve got—”

“Walker?” Terra said with me. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

“Walker and I are fine.”

“Then take him with you when you go,” Cass snarled. She tugged the mouth breather away, without looking back.

Terra shook her head. “She stood up for you. When you came back, and you were all—you know. She defended you. She said you were still the same person under there. That we should give you a chance, even if…”

“Even if what ?”

She looked at me like it was pitiful, the way I couldn’t figure it out for myself. “Even if it’s embarrassing ,” she said, over-enunciating. Slow words for my slow brain. “Being seen with you. Like this . And then you try to steal Jax?”

I hadn’t even known that was his name. “I told you, he came on to me .”

Terra shook her head. “I actually feel sorry for you. I mean, Lia was always self-absorbed, but whoever you are—whatever you are—could you be any more oblivious?”