Page 34 of Riot Act

Presley picks up the gelato, stabbing at the melting yellow goop in the cup with a plastic spoon. “So…she’s supposed tobegfor your bone marrow then?”

“Y’know, I much preferred it when you couldn’t get a solid sentence out in front of other people,” I snap. “You were far less annoying then.” The past three years, the girl has blushed madly and run away every time I’ve even looked sideways at her. I would have assumed she’d be even more shy around me given the circumstances, but she doesn’t seem that bothered by my presence now. I’m mad because her statement stings in a way that only the truth can. If she was wrong, I’d brush her off without breaking a sweat, but I can feel myself getting hot under the collar. “I wouldn’t give it to her even if she did beg for it,” I grit out.

“You hate her, then. Youwanther to die.” There’s no judgement attached to this statement. She just looks at me curiously—a ghost girl with bandaged wrists, swirling her spoon around in her gelato. It’s a miracle she can even use her hands considering how deep her wounds were when I found her. She must have just missed her tendons.

“If I agree with you, will you let me go?” I growl.

She looks at me but can’t hold my gaze for long. She glances away, looking out of the window instead. “Saving her would be better revenge than letting her die.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you donate your bone marrow and save your mother’s life, she’ll owe you everything. She’ll be forever indebted to you. No matter what she says or does, or how awful she is, you’ll know thatyou’rethe reason she still gets to walk the face of the planet. There’s something poetic about that.”

I grind my teeth together, nostrils flared. Letting Meredith die is one thing. Forcing her to live…that reallyiswicked. And yeah. The theatrical, melodramatic side of my mother is enjoying her own slow and tragic demise. She probably thinks that fading away to nothing in a comfortable hospital bed is terribly romantic. It’s not, though. It’s fucking stupid. And I could destroy her macabre little fantasy like a soap bubble, if I just stick out my finger and…popit.

Food for thought.

“I s’pose you’re right. Thanks.”

She looks at me thoughtfully. “You’re welcome. Do you think you could do me a favor?”

“’Cause saving your life wasn’t enough?”

She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t shrink away from me either, though. Her eyes fill with a brand new, unfamiliar kind of resolve. “Will you do it or not?”

“Depends. Are you going to thank me for saving you?”

“No.”

Such a quick answer. Firm. Most girls would have turned bright red and stumbled over a humiliated thank you, quick as you like. The Chase (her name’s too long to give her the full title, even in my head) I know from school would be too anxious to even do that. But this girl right here, who looks so much like Chase, and sounds so much like her, is resolute when she issues her refusal.

Moderately amused, I fold my arms across my chest. “Why the hell would I do any more favors for you if you’re this ungrateful, then?”

“Iwillbe grateful for this one,” she replies.

“What is it?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

“What?”

“I have a theory.”

The girl is batshit crazy. She’s been cleaned up, yes, but they haven’t done a perfect job. Her hair is still caked with dried blood, and there are flecks of it spackled across the backs of her hands. She looks altogether too pale, and too sick. Ghastly, all around. “I’m not fuckingkissingyou. Why the hell would I do that?”

She shrugs. “To see what it feels like to kiss a half-dead girl? To see what if feels like to kiss a girl who’s just as broken as you? Think of it as an experiment.”

“Ignoring the broken comment—rude, by the way—what am I hoping to accomplish by participating in this ridiculous experiment? What the hell amIsupposed to learn?”

Again, she bounces a shoulder, looking down at her hands, fingers tangled together in her lap. “I don’t know. I suppose you’d find out.”

I have never heard anything so stupid or pointless in my entire life. Thereissomething intriguing about this pale, half-dead girl. She’d make a great ghost. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make out with her while she’s laid out in a hospital bed.

“What are you afraid of?” she asks. “Suicidal tendencies aren’t catching.”

“I didn’t think they were. I’m notafraidof anything—”

“Then prove it. Kiss me.”