Page 63 of Fangs with Benefits

Molly presses her lips together and shrugs. I think of her stories, the ones published in online magazines and the unpublished ones she writes in her little black notebook. I want to steal it and pore over her notes, try to make sense of them, study them to understand how her brain works better. ‘I’m still figuring that one out.’

‘You’re from the city?’

‘No. You’ve heard of Utah? I’m from there.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘No, my dad moved there in the nineties to work at a tech company and never left. It’s nice.’

‘Is that why you’re so good with computers?’ I ask. Jellie always has a way of getting new information from people and I want to take in every little Molly detail she unearths. ‘Because your dad taught you?’

‘I was a child of the internet,’ she says. ‘But yeah, we always had a computer and he was always teaching us things about them. I think he thought the more screen time the better.’

I don’t know what she means by this ‘screen time’ but I lean forward, soaking in every word.

‘Siblings?’ Jellie asks and takes another sip of blood through her metal straw.

‘A brother, yeah. Caleb. He’s in Utah too.’

‘Do you miss it?’ I ask. I know very little about Utah, other than the rock formations in the shape of arches. And the red rocks. Saguaro cactuses? No, that’s Arizona.

‘Sometimes. My parents live near a bunch of farms and I loved riding my bike on sunny days down the roads. It was quieter, there. And peaceful.’

‘Elijah loved to wander around fields himself,’ Jellie says. ‘Our dreamer.’

It almost hurts to remember it after so long. Feeling the sun on my face and having peace instead of being drained by it. I ache for that feeling of my face tilted to the bright blue sky, soaking in warm daylight.

There was a period, after Ada, where I put myself in the sun as a punishment. It doesn’t feel good, being drained like that, and I tried to sleep my way through a few decades. No way to live, really.

Though I suppose that’s just it; I’m not alive. Dead, or maybe undead. Half dead.

We talk a short while longer before Molly makes her excuses and I walk her out. We don’t kiss goodbye with my sister watching, but I do wish I was brave enough to run to her and kiss her again like I did in the office.

‘Thanks for dinner,’ she says from inside the elevator. ‘You’re a good cook.’

‘Good night, Molly.’

‘Night,’ she says, as the metal doors slide shut.

Back in Dylan’s flat, Jellie thumbs through one of my books, a genre I think is called the omegaverse? I don’t know–Kai recommended it and I thought it sounded interesting.

I sit in the spot Molly just vacated and wait for Jellie to say it. I bite my lower lip as she returns the book to the side table.

‘She was sweet,’ Jellie says, voice too gentle. I close my eyes and nod.

‘It’s not like last time,’ I tell her. I’m aware I sound defensive denying it before Jellie can even say it. But it’s not. I’ve learned, I know better. I am better.

‘It could be,’ Jellie says with a shrug. ‘What happened to Ada–brother, that was rare. Just because it happened once doesn’t mean it’s fated to happen again.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘We’re friends. That’s all.’

I leave out the with benefits bit, because she already sees straight through me. Admitting to any additional intimacy is only going to spur her on further.

‘All right,’ Jellie says, her tone surrendering. She’ll drop it for now. ‘Molly is very beautiful.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree, seeing in my mind the way her hair falls over the collar of her pink puffer coat, her nose scrunched when I say something she thinks absurd, and those eyes.

‘I’d like to shower,’ Jellie says. ‘And then I’ll need a nap. Too much sun for my taste today.’