Chapter 52
“I’m hanging out with Molly today,” she would shrug, when invited over. If we brushed against each other while we walked, she would shoot me a threatening glare, and at every party she spent more time talking to boys than she had before. Her hands on their arms, their shoulders. Her voice sweet and seductive. It drove a wedge between my lungs to watch her so casually throw herself into their arms with all the cunning shrew of a seductress, even if she never dared to kiss them. And she took to avoiding me on nights out, skillfully dodging me in nightclubs and houses when all I wanted was just to be close to her—close enough that I knew I needed no reason to worry or to fret. If things didn’t unfold the way they did I am certain we would have met our end, nonetheless, one way or another. Nothing that is built on deceit, on secrecy and pretense, is built to last.