WHO: Kaden, Luna, Peitho WHEN: Thursday afternoon WHERE: Peitho’s apartment WHAT: Come over, Kaden... WARNINGS Peitho’s brand of coercion, references to both their pasts
It didn’t really surprise Kaden that Ava never messaged him back. Life went on, you know?
That’s what he told himself. Life went on. He did all his homework and he raced his friends round parking lots in trollies and played Xbox with the Warmoths and he made himself sick on soda and he went for joyrides in the car Tragos had finished putting back together and sometimes he went to McDonalds late at night and ate fries by himself and tried to figure out the meaning of life and goddesses. All of these had the knock-on effect of avoiding Cy.
And sometimes in class he sat with his head on his hand and looked out the window and thought about making out with Ava in the back of her Cadillac. And he wondered about the crying girl in her bathroom but mostly he thought about Ava’s mouth and her body and the way she’d looked at him like he impressed her.
That was still the greatest high, impressing her. He planned heists in his head for her, wondering how delighted she might be. Afterwards, they made love in the getaway car.
But life went on, and there were other things to worry about. If he ever got too lost in fantasy land all he had to do was remember Tragos’ concussion and worry about the next one and that sapped most of the life out of his imagination. Or trying to make Cy’s version of ever-changing rent, and what Cy might do (and did do) on the days he didn’t measure up.
When Ava messaged him he was at school. He hadn’t thought about her for a few days, and reading her words his first assumption was that it was some kind of prank. But the minutes ticked on and he hid his phone like the message was obscene and his body told him in quite firm terms that the risks of it being a prank were far outweighed by the rewards he’d get if it wasn’t one.
So he left school early feigning sickness and went home and got changed and his heart was beating the whole time like it was too large for his body. And it beat harder and harder as he rode the elevator up to her apartment, and so hard when he knocked on the door that he was afraid she was gonna hear it, and know how much this meant to him.