The Dead Girls Club - Damien Angelica Walters Page 0,57
wanted was my friend back. I started crying and buried my face in my pillow so no one would hear.
* * *
I walked super slow to the front door of the empty house, almost wanting someone to see me, to yell at me to get away. Maybe if they did, if we weren’t allowed to sneak in anymore, Becca would act like Becca again. But there was no one around to see me or yell.
The door was unlocked and everyone else already downstairs, sitting in a circle. No candles or anything else. Rachel and Gia seemed okay, and they scooted to make a space in between for me, but Becca barely said hello.
Rachel was the one who’d told me we were hanging out here tonight, and the only reason I’d even come was because she’d said it was a meeting of the Dead Girls Club.
I said, “Did you see about the lady in Florida?”
Becca rolled her eyes and made her lips thin.
“What lady?” Rachel said.
“You didn’t see it on the news last night?” I said.
“I never watch the news,” Rachel said.
“Me either,” Gia said. “It’s boring.”
Becca made the face again, but I knew she watched it sometimes. She’d heard when my dad told me it was important for me to know what was happening in the world.
I swallowed, waiting to see if Becca would tell me to shut up, but she didn’t, and I said, “She got attacked outside a store by her old boyfriend. They broke up, but he kept calling her and showing up at her apartment, and the police couldn’t stop him. He followed her shopping, and they got into a fight in front of the store because she told him to leave her alone. Then he stabbed her a bunch of times, right there, out in front. He left and people walked by and saw all the blood and didn’t even help. She was alive for a long time, too. People even saw him stab her and didn’t do anything at all.”
“Did they call the cops?” Rachel said.
“I guess,” I said. “But by the time they got there, she was dead.”
“How could you not try to help?” Rachel said.
“Maybe they didn’t know she was hurt,” Gia said.
“They said there was a lot of blood,” I said. “No way people didn’t know. They just didn’t want to help. It was like that story you read, Becca, about the woman in New York, that woman Kitty.”
She blinked at me, but nothing else.
“Did they catch him? The boyfriend?” Rachel said.
“Not yet,” I said. “They showed a picture, and he looked totally normal. He didn’t even have psycho Ted Bundy eyes, just regular eyes.”
Rachel’s forehead got all scrunchy. “Is he—”
“Has anyone seen anything weird?” Becca asked. “Or had any more dreams?”
I pinched my lower lip between my teeth, Rachel chewed a fingernail, and Gia played with the laces on her shoe.
“I thought somebody was in my house the other day,” Gia said, talking fast. “Nobody else was home, but I heard somebody in the kitchen.”
“I keep having the dream,” Rachel said.
“Am I the only one who cares?” Becca said.
“About what?” I said.
“About what matters.”
“The lady in Florida mattered,” I said.
“But we aren’t here to talk about her,” Becca said.
“She’s a dead girl, right? So she counts. There’s more things to talk about than the Red Lady,” I said, and I didn’t even pretend not to be angry. I didn’t care if it would make Becca mad. It felt like she was always mad at me lately anyway, no matter what I did or said.
“Maybe I don’t want to talk about them,” Becca said.
I hoped Rachel and Gia would back me up, but they turned away. To Becca, I said, “Why are you acting so weird? It’s like you hate me all of a sudden, nothing I do or say is right.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You’re acting like you do,” I said. “All I did was tell a story. I thought this was an official meeting. I thought telling the story—”
“I’m the one who tells the stories,” Becca said.
“But I asked if you heard about her first, and you didn’t say anything.”
Becca hit the floor with a fist. “Maybe you should’ve waited.”
“Waited?” I said. “For what?”
“Hey,” Rachel said.
“For me to tell you what we were talking about,” Becca said.
“You don’t make any sense,” I said. “Why do we have to talk about someone specific? We never did before. You never got mad at me this way before, either.”