Page 113 of Leave a Mark
“Fist, please,” Cherise said, raising the salt shaker.
They licked, shot, and sucked the courage round. Courage, it seemed, did come in a bottle. Courage warmed its way down her throat.
“Okay…” Cherise winced, shaking off the shot. “Why do you think you can’t be with Lee?”
“Because I’m not good enough for him.”
“Bullshit!”
“Wait. Hear me out—”
“Drink first,” Cherise ordered, topping off her shot glass.
Wren licked the salt, knocked back the tequila, and bit down on the lime wedge. A shudder rolled over her, but her skin tingled, making it easier to say the words.
“His folks… You should have seen the way they looked at me today.” Wren shook her head as the memory stung her again. “It was like they were staring at a criminal. His father actually said I looked like an addict.”
Cherise scowled. “But you’re not an addict. You’ve never even smoked pot. You didn’t try your first drink until you were twenty-one. I know. I was there.”
Wren sighed. “You don’t understand—”
Cherise put a hand up. “Hang on, I have to drink now…”
“What? Oh, sorry.” She watched Cherise toss back the shot and silently scream against the lime. “At least we’re even.”
Cherise nodded, her eyes still shut. “Okay,” she panted, “keep going.”
“It’s not so much how they saw me,” Wren began, struggling to put it in the words. “It’s more that I know what they see is the truth.”
“Bull—”
Wren threw up a hand. “Wait, before you say it, let me explain while I’m still sober.”
Rolling her eyes, Cherise sighed. “Okay, fine. Explain.”
Wren took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m not an addict, but I’m not clean either.”
Cherise met her words with a frown. “Wren, what happened to you wasn’t your fault. You’re innocent. You were a child.”
“Iwasinnocent,” Wren corrected. “But something innocent can be tainted, and that’s what happened to me. I’m not innocent anymore.”
Silence.
Cherise wasn’t calling bullshit. Because she couldn’t.
“If I ever had a chance of being washed clean after what Darryl did to me, it died with Laurie.”
The woman beside her narrowed her eyes at Wren and stared hard. “Bullshit!”
“That’s the truth, and you—”
“Aah-aah-aah!” Cherise stuck out a palm again before reaching for the tequila. She filled both their shot glasses. “I’m preloading so you don’t interrupt what I’m about to say.”
Lick. Shoot. Suck.
Wren shuddered and wiped her mouth with a knuckle. The room seemed to go a little fuzzy at the edges. “I won’t be able to keep this up much longer.”
With a shiver, Cherise shook her head. “Me either. Okay… what was I saying?” She frowned at Wren and seemed to pick up the thread. “Oh, right. If you believed that, why did you get the phoenix tattoo?” Cherise lifted her hand and tried to aim it at Wren’s chest, but it bobbed in front of her in a loose circle.
