Page 173 of Devils' Day Party
“Become Banksy,” Barron says, biting into a cupcake as he grins, and I blush back at him. We're into each other; he draws me too much; but we're new at this, and I'm still getting used to being casual with him.
“Real smart game plan,” Raz drawls sighing and shaking his head. “I have no idea. Whatever college my dad wants me to go to.”
“Pretty much,” Calix agrees, shrugging his shoulders. All three of the boys are dressed in their purple blazers, lavender ties, and white dress-shirts. I love it, a man in a uniform. “Why? What about you?”
“I want to move to New Orleans and live in the French Quarter,” I say with a shrug. “I want to have adventures. College, maybe, but mostly adventures.”
“Want to live in the French Quarter with a trust fund?” Raz asks, smirking sharply. It’s an expression I'm used to seeing. I'm most definitely not used to seeing Raz's blue eyes and the pair of dark-rimmed glasses on his face.
“That's one of the … cutest things I've ever had anyone say to me,” I murmur, completely and utterly shocked. “Où est passée ta langue de pute tête de gland?” In essence, have you forgotten how to have an acidic tongue, dickhead?
“Lui oui, mais pas moi. Tu vas avoir besoin de quelqu'un qui parle français pour toi dans le Quartier Français,” Calix purrs, his voice sliding over me like silk, settling into every nook and cranny of my heart. A whole month of Devils’ Days, of parties, of revelations, and it’s finally over. He has, but I haven't. You might need someone to speak French for you, in the French Quarter.
“I don't speak French, but I can definitely translate bullshit,” Barron says, looking me dead in the face with his beautiful eyes, one blue, one brown. His Mohawk is clean and tamed today, slicked back and vibrant. “I want to make art, and art appreciates experience. I'll go wherever the fuck you go, Karma; you are an experience.”
I snort.
“You don't have to be so nice to me, just because I …” We haven't really talked about my suicide attempt, but it's there, waiting to be brought up, the proverbial elephant in the room.
“Yes, we do,” Calix says, frowning hard and flicking his dark eyes over to me. “But not for the reasons you might think.”
“You mean like pity?” I ask, but I've seen them all at their most vulnerable, stripped down and emotionally bare for me. Their sudden care and affection isn't as surprising as it might've been before all of this. The time loop. One day, I'll tell them about it. But not yet. I'm not ready to talk about it just now. Some part of me is afraid that if I bring it up too soon, I'll go to sleep and wake up at the gas station.
Wake up to a steering wheel covered in blood.
“Pity?” Raz snorts and shakes his head, raking his fingers through his dirty blonde hair. “Not a chance in hell. Do you really think we do anything out of pity? I mean, like, ever?” He pauses for a moment, like he's thinking unbelievably hard about something. “You never know when someone's so full of pain, they might …” Raz trails off, and my lips curve into a smile.
He's repeating what I said to him at the cabin, almost verbatim. He was listening. Even if he doesn't remember it the way I do, some part of that night stuck with him.
“They might snap,” I finish. “One kind word could save someone, and you'll never know. It's always better to be nice.”
“Hey, whoa, let's not take it that far.” Raz holds up his hands in surrender as Barron pulls a box of cereal from his book bag. A whole box, unopened and everything. He tears the top off and digs into the brightly colored Fruity Pebbles inside, popping them in his mouth one at a time. “Nobody ever said shit about being ‘nice’.” He makes little quotes with his fingers, and I roll my eyes.
“We're not treating you differently because you tried to kill yourself,” Barron says in that deep, low voice of his. “We're treating you the way we should've treated you all along. Your suicide attempt was a wakeup call for all of us. You won't be here forever, Karma, waiting around for us to get our shit together.” Barron pauses and glances out the window as we pull up to Crescent Prep. “Life doesn't often give do-overs, now does it?” He glances back at me with a smile, and then tosses his sketchbook my way.
I catch it just before he opens the door and steps out, greeting Sonja with a nod of his chin as she and Luke pull up beside us in the old white Caddy.
I take a moment to flip open the book, smiling at the now-familiar images of myself, lovingly etched in charcoal. As I flip through the pages, I find drawings of our time in the butterfly cave, at Thorncrown Chapel, at the Devil Springs high party … But then I get to the end and discover several new images, ones I've never seen before.
