Page 16 of Broken Souls

“Kayla, please, just let me know if you know someone.” I lower myself to pleading. “Please.”

I can hear her chewing her lip.“All right. I’ll call you.”

“Thank you! You are the best sister-in-law I’ve ever had!”

“I’m your only sister-in-law.”

“Ha!” I cry out. “I knew it! You set a date finally!”

“There’s nothing to know yet. Bye!”She hangs up with a chuckle. I think Justin is running out of patience. Kayla’s been wearing that ring on her finger for… what, a year now? And still, she hasn’t set a date. I think he may just handcuff her to his wrist and drag her ass to elope soon.

I understand though. They’d been stuck in that wheel of hate for so long, it was hard to get out. They did, thank God. But it was more complicated for Kayla after years of torment.

My next task to tackle is Josie. I have a dozen missed FaceTime calls from her and about two dozen messages. I sigh as I click call.

“Bitch, you’d better be in a sex coma because that’s the only excuse I’ll accept right now!” she yells. Her face fills my phone screen, her eyes bright, makeup perfect as always. She’s walking, her shiny black hair in perfect sixties’ waves bouncing with each step. I touch my hair, becoming all too aware of its current ratty state.

“I’m sorry, Josie.” I wince. “I ran into some trouble.”

“What sort of trouble stops you from picking up your damn phone to shoot me a short message? I thought you could have died! I was about to call a SWAT team on you!” She shakes her head.

“Well, glad you asked.” I point my phone camera to show her the disaster in my kitchen.

“Oh, shit.” She whistles.

“Shit, indeed. Now you see?”

“I see it, but I still don’t see why you couldn’t pick up your phone.” She sat down, scratching her cheek with her perfectly manicured middle finger.

I laugh and flip the camera back around. “Because I left my phone at home.”

Her eyes, previously looking straight ahead, snap toward me, closely resembling the owl I saw in my backyard the other night. “And you were—” She clears her throat before continuing. “Where were you?”

“At my neighbor’s house,” I answer proudly.

“As in, for the night? The entire night?” Her eyes somehow widen even more.

“Yep,” I reply, popping the P.

“What?” She jumps from her chair with a shriek.

“What the fuck?” someone says in the background.

She turns her attention to them and says, “Oh, you shut it, party pooper,” and then back to me. “Like you spent the whole night at her house?”

I pause for dramatic effect, knowing she’s about to lose her shit. “His house,” I tell her, a smile playing on my lips.

“What?” she cries even louder, followed by someone’s voice in the background.

“Psycho.”

But she ignores him. I stunned her into silence, an impossible task. “You spent the night at a dude’s house?” She nearly shrieks.

“I did.”

Her eyes turn misty. “I’m so damn proud of you, girl. So proud.” She dabs the corner of her eyes with a white napkin she produced out of nowhere and sniffles.

“We didn’t do anything,” I assure her, sighing.