Page 123 of Long Way Down

Melissa simply sat.

“I like him,” Leslie said, as she cleaned up. “He’s a good egg.”

“That’s what you say about Pongo, though.”

“And I mean it with him, too. He’s here, by the way.”

“What?” The note of anxiety that crept into her voice was the first crack in the otherwise oppressive numbness that had her in its grips. Even now that she was aware of her surroundings, speaking and able to react, everything maintained an underwater cloudiness – or, it had. Mention of Pongo set her nerves to jangling.

Leslie stripped her gloves off into the trash and turned to give her alook. “Are you serious right now?”

“What?”

“Are you seriously gonna sit there and act surprised that he’s here?”

Melissa blinked. “Yes. Whyishe here?”

The look became more exasperated, somehow. “Girl, I love you, but you aredense. You have to be, because there’s no way you’re so deep in denial at this point. That would be too willfully stupid to comprehend, so you must be actually stupid.”

“Ouch.”

“Truth hurts. That boy iscrazyabout you.”

“He likes sex and getting information.”

“He likesyou,” Leslie insisted, arms folding. “I know you don’t like to admit it, because you’re repressed, or five-years-old and think liking a boy is some sort of admission of weakness, but Pongo is cute. He’s hot. He could get someone else if he only wanted sex and information.”

Repressed. Yes, she was that. Juvenile, maybe. But the words stung far worse than the lidocaine needle.

“Then why don’t you go out with him if he’s such a catch?” she grumbled. Her pulse did something dizzying and unpleasant at the prospect; she suddenly, absurdly pictured herself in a tea-length dress, maid of honor while Pongo slipped a ring on Leslie’s finger. The minister saying: “I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Pongo Lean Dog,” because she still didn’t know his real fucking name.

In this vision, the minister’s face shifted, morphed, and was Pastor Keith’s face. His voice was that lilting, Mississippi drawl, as his reptilian eyes slid to Melissa.“And now,”he crooned,“everyone watch them kiss, or I’ll kill your whole family.”

“Ah, shit.” Leslie’s voice seemed to be coming from down a long tunnel, distant and tinny. “Melissa.”

Melissa was staring at her own booted feet dangling far above the tiles below, their fake terrazzo sheen. A fresh, wet droplet of blood gleamed on the toe of her left boot.

“Hey,” Leslie said, nearer, but still blurred, as if speaking through a cloth. “Missy.”

Her lungs burned. She needed to breathe. She opened her mouth and drew in a ragged breath. Honeysuckle, water…

No. Solvent. Plastic. Astringent tang of the alcohol that had cleansed her wound.

“Missy,” Leslie said again, and Melissa knew where she was, and why, but her eyes stung because she’d slipped, again, had been slipping, and didn’t know how to make it stop.

Two slender, strong brown hands appeared in her line of sight; reached forward and gripped her shoulders tight, lifted her upright. Leslie frowned at her in an old, familiar way: a frown that was more sad than anything, a sadness for her friend edged with worry. “It’s been bad this time, hasn’t it?”

It was in their junior year of high school that Melissa first spilled her secret to her best friend; to a girl who’d stood by her, through all the small town media blowup, the chaos, the hateful looks from the women of the congregation who’d idolized or maybe been a little bit in love with their pastor. Amidst the worst of the chaos, she’d expected Leslie’s family to bar the door to her entry, and they would have been justified in doing so. Leslie was smart, talented, and already a shining star: sure to be valedictorian and fielding college letters since the summer before freshman year. Her parents were both dentists, and they lived in a much nicer part of town than Melissa did, and why wouldn’t they have pushed away the sorry little white trash girl who’d unleashed scandal hell on their one-horse town? But they’d welcomed her instead. Leslie had thrown an arm around her shoulders and dared the other students at their school to say anything out of line. The Lawrence family had been her eye in the storm.

So Leslie knew all the awfulness; knew that it ate at Melissa’s mind, still.

She blinked and sniffed, and sat back under her own power. Tears had formed, but they receded without falling.

It was oh so tempting to fall apart. It was safe here, with her best friend. She could cry, and cry, and cry, let all that she’d been holding come spilling out.

But she’d spent the years in New York working hard not to do that anymore. She couldn’t live like this. Couldn’t go to pieces and expect someone to catch her every time the past vibrated out through her bones and gripped her around the throat.

“I was worried about this,” Leslie said, half to herself, shaking her head. “I knew swapping to Sex Crimes would be bad for you.”