Sinner

Sofia blinked at me. Her eyes luminesced.

“Shoes are the things you put on your feet.”

“Just us? Or Cole, too?” Right after she said it, she added, “Because I don’t mind. I mean, if he comes. It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be just us. I appreciate you asking either way.

Because —”

“Sofia,” I snapped. “Stop.”

“Are you going to marry him?” Sofia asked.

“Sofia,” I snapped, with slightly more teeth. “Way to escalate.

What the hell. This is not a Disney movie. Have you learned nothing from the example of our elders?”

She turned back to the counter and began to operate the standing mixer, her shoulders slumped. Powdered sugar surrounded her in a cloud. Without looking at me, she said, “Dad called.”

Ah. This explained some of the wet-towel atmosphere in the House of Ruin. I tried to think of what an actual human would say in this situation. I asked, “Are you okay?”

Sofia began to cry, which was exactly why I generally tried to avoid being a human. I wished I had stayed with Cole.

“Yes,” said Sofia as tears dropped off her nose. “Thank you for asking.” She glopped a huge spoon of frosting from the mixing bowl onto a cinnamon roll and handed the plate to me.

“For the love of God,” I said, taking it. “Get one of those things and come on.”

“Come on where?”

“My room. Let’s go call Cole.”

We did. Up in my room, I put him on speaker and made him sing his latest song to us. When he found out Sofia was listening, he started swapping out his real lyrics for funny ones, and soon she was laughing and crying at the same time. Finally, I got up to plug my phone in because the battery was dying from all the singing, and Sofia went off to bed, happy and sad, which was at least better than just sad.

I took the phone off speaker and climbed onto my bed. I put my head on the pillow and laid the phone on my ear. “We’re alone. You can swear again.”

“I wish you were here,” Cole said.

I didn’t answer right away. Then, because it was a phone, and he couldn’t see my face, so I could be as honest as I liked, I admitted, “Me, too.”

“Isabel —” Cole said. He stopped. Then he said, “Don’t hang up.”

“I haven’t hung up.”

“Keep not hanging up.”

“I still haven’t hung up.” I heard a bird shrill on his end of the phone. “Are you outside?”

“I’m in the alley. Waiting for Leon. He’s done at midnight and we’re going to go get food on a stick and I’m going to win him a stuffed monkey on the Pier. These are the things I do when you leave me alone, Isabel.”

I said, “Don’t break Leon’s heart.”

Cole laughed. His real laugh was a funny sound — not funny like ha-ha, but funny strange. It was percussive rather than tonal. He said, “Tell me you’ll see me tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tell me you’ll see me the next day. And the day after that.

And the day after that.”

My heart thumped convulsively. It had happened. Against my will, despite the na**d girls and the smell of wolf and all of the things that hinted at future misery, I had fallen back in love with Cole.

I said, “Good night, Cole.”

“Good night, Culpeper.”

I hung up and closed my eyes. Later, later, I knew that I’d probably regret all of this. But right now I couldn’t feel afraid. I just kept hearing his silly lyrics and his real laugh. I kept remembering the feel of his hands on me. I tried to tell myself that everybody in the House of Ruin and Misery eventually cried themselves to sleep, but right then, in that moment, I let myself imagine I wasn’t like anyone else.

Chapter Twenty-Two

· cole ·

In the morning I woke up and discovered there was really nothing wrong with the world at all, apart from waking up with barbecue breath. I boiled eggs and drank a carton of milk, and then stood on the roof deck for an hour trying to piece together a lyric that would say exactly all that while not saying exactly all that. Baby called me and said, “Why aren’t you picking up your work phone?”

It took me a moment to realize that she was talking about Virtual Me, which of course was not in my possession. I stretched and closed my eyes. The sun was straight overhead and pointed only at me. I replied, “Because I only use it for, like, connecting with the Internet. Don’t cross the streams, Baby.

Why haven’t you got me my Mustang?”

“Ha-ha, this is me laughing, Cole. I want that girl on the show.”

It felt slightly less sunny out here. “I hope by that girl you are referring to my car.”

“The Internet loves the idea that you’re dating someone.

They want to know if she’s the one, Cole. She’s a very pretty girl. Think about what it would do for viewership.”

I didn’t have to think. I knew exactly what the world would do with it, because they’d done it with every other girl they’d ever spotted me with. The idea of trying to date in public tweaked exactly the same part of my brain as the idea of speaking to my parents or old friends from home. Which was to say the same part of my brain that was always contemplating blowing myself away or jumping off a bridge or eating some pills.

It wasn’t a part of my brain I liked to engage. Until very recently, I thought I’d lobotomized it from my skull, but apparently it was still in there.

Baby said, “Convince her to be on the show and I’ll get you a Mustang.”

I laughed before I’d even though about it, because it was such an obvious devil’s bargain that there was no danger I’d fall into it.

“We need to have dinner, Cole,” Baby said. “I think that is the thing. Bring her. Tonight. Clear your schedule.”

“I’m not feeling very dinner-y,” I replied. “Seeing as my track nearly got screwed over yesterday and I had a bunch of topless girls in my apartment last night.”

“That sounds exciting. I like exciting.”

“I was being plenty exciting without that.”

“Were you?” Baby asked curiously. “Are you being exciting now?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Great. I look forward to seeing it. Dinner tonight, don’t forget. Also, pick up your other phone when I call it.”

She hung up. I called Isabel.