Page 2

Hollis Brown looked up.

Annie was staring at him, blocking out the sun.

He scrubbed the back of his hand across his face, smearing the blood beneath his nose.

Annie’s frown got deeper.

“I didn’t do anything.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that.”

“Oh come on! There’s nothing I could say that would hurt more than James Miller’s right hook. He almost broke my fucking jaw.”

Annie opened her backpack and pulled out her roll of Hello Kitty Band-Aids. She wiped his cuts roughly, spraying them with antiseptic, then she pressed a kiss to the scrape across Hollis’s knuckles.

“Maybe if you bitched at him less, your jaw wouldn’t be almost broken,” she snapped, merciless. “Yulia isn’t going to be happy.”

Hollis let himself fall gently back until he was flat on the pavement again.

The thing about being friends with only girls was that they held him accountable for his actions. He got scolded and berated and pushed to be better. But he also got Band-Aids. Even kisses sometimes, if he played his cards right.

Annie sprayed antiseptic all over his face, then chucked the bottle at him hard enough to hurt.