A shiver chases over my skin as I bite into my burger, slowly licking the sauce off of my bottom lip as Aaron watches me. He does the same with his burger, and I almost smile. I mean, I would if Oscar hadn't just suggested that the price for Hael's fatherhood is murder.
“But?” Vic asks, closing his eyes against the sunshine, like he's in a world far, far away from here. Flicking my attention to Callum, I see him unloading his extra-large fry order onto a tray and dousing it in ketchup. He pauses just after he does that, staring down at the viscous red liquid like perhaps his mind is somewhere else, too. Maybe at the party, with Danny's blood staining the floor.
He notices me looking and hooks a cruel smile, flipping his hood up and hiding the golden shimmer of his blond hair. When he puts a long fry between his lips, it's not a particularly innocent move.
“It either means nothing or it means everything. We don’t have to talk about it. Just decide what it is that you want.”
I flick my attention back to Oscar.
“You assume there's a but involved,” Oscar says, smiling in a way that reminds me of cold graves and mausoleums with weeping angels. That thought soon devolves into one of us fucking in a graveyard, and I grit my teeth, wondering where the hell that came from. Another bite of my burger banishes the day-mare into oblivion.
“There's always a conjunction with you, Oscar,” Vic murmurs as I pick up my chocolate shake and take a sip.
“Well, in this case, you're right,” Oscar says, and I have to wonder if this isn't how the discussion of my price went down. “Tell her we want to own her—body, mind, and soul. She'll never accept.” I frown as I think about what Aaron and Vic told me, about how every letter of Havoc but the V wanted me gone, shipped off to Nantucket to work part-time at the ice cream parlor. My lip curls. “There is a but. We add in a condition that she have the fetus DNA tested at the earliest available opportunity. According to my research, Brittany should be about seventeen weeks along. That means conception would likely be on or around August twenty-ninth.”
Oscar pauses to look up from the iPad as all eyes turn to Hael. He's still slumped over, leaving his triple-meat burger and cheese fries cooling on the table. Nobody talks, but voices drift across the railroad tracks from the Fuller High hangout. We cut class early to have time to talk this out; guess we aren't the only ones who skipped out on sixth period today.
I watch them, in their pre-ripped department store jeans and Lululemon leggings, and wonder what life is like when you're just … normal. And no, it's not just a setting on a dryer. It's a reality. Either you blend in, or you stick out. And we, we most certainly stick out, like broken graves in a green lawn.
Hael finally lifts his head up as I glance back at him, his jaw tight, his eyes flinty.
“August twenty-ninth?” he asks, like that's not a date he wants to hear. “Fuck my life.”
“You screw her on the twenty-ninth or what?” Vic snaps, lifting his own head back up and leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees. The way he looks at Hael, well, I don't envy the guy. “Speak up. I'm not exactly thrilled with you. On top of everything else, we now have to deal with this shit. The load's getting a little heavy, Hael.”
“Don't you think I fucking know that?” he snaps back, his skin ashen as he rubs at his face again. His stubble is just starting to come through, and it's a much redder color than I expected. Just yesterday, I was admiring how clean-shaven he was. Just one day of thinking about Brittany, and he’s stopped that routine entirely. “If you're starting to wonder if I might be getting psyched about this whole 'raising a baby with Brittany thing', then you clearly don't know me for shit.” He pauses, working his jaw as his eyes flick back in the direction of the Fuller High kids. “Late August, Brittany stole the keys to her dad's lake house. We spent a weekend up there. I don't know if it was the twenty-ninth or not. Thing is, she didn’t cheat on me until after we got back from that trip. So