“Well, in that case,” he reaches out and pulls Nastya onto his lap as she places the trivets on the table, “what’s for dinner?”

CHAPTER 26

Josh

“How do you know there’s not a God?” Tierney Lowell spits out at Drew, twenty minutes in to a debate that’s been raging since the fifth period bell rang. It started with a discussion about a short story we’d read last week and somehow devolved into a full-scale back and forth on the existence of God.

“How do you know there is one?” Drew retorts. He isn’t even trying. This is laziness, or just apathy. I’ve seen him practicing for debate, and this is nothing for him. He’s just baiting Tierney for fun.

“I never said I knew. Faith isn’t about knowledge. That’s why it’s called faith, jackass. Thus, the expression, leap of faith.”

“Ms. Lowell?”

“Moron, mule, idiot, fool, Drew.” Tierney tosses out. It’s Ms. McAllister’s rule. You use an unacceptable word, you have to come up with five to replace it. She lets the Drew part slide.

“When did you turn all religious?” Drew doesn’t miss a beat. Everyone is paying attention, heads whipping back and forth like the audience at a tennis match. Immoral people debating the existence of God is always a crowd pleaser. Especially with palpable sexual tension thrown in. The only other sound in the room is the periodic slam of the stapler Sunshine is using in the corner. She’s been collating papers since class started. Her back is turned but I can almost see her listening.

“I hate religion. I believe in God.”

“Believing in God is for weak people.” Drew almost sounds bored, but it’s obvious he’s enjoying this.

“Then it’s a mystery why you don’t.” She leans back in her chair but Drew doesn’t take the bait.

“People believe in God because they don’t believe in themselves. They need something else to depend on or to blame instead of taking responsibility for their own shit‌—‌crap, excrement, waste, mistakes, faults.”

“That’s rich coming from a person who takes responsibility for nothing.”

“I’ve never denied my actions.”

“Which makes you such a moral paragon.”

“Morals?” Drew chokes out the word which probably burns on his tongue. “Isn’t that the pot smoker calling the kettle black?” Kevin Leonard and the other stoners in the room think this is the greatest thing they’ve ever heard. “Don’t lecture me T. I take responsibility for everything I do.”

“Not everything.”

“If you’re going to make accusations, back it up, give me some support, otherwise your arguments mean nothing.”

“We’re not in debate, Drew.” She doesn’t look cowed by him. She looks betrayed.

“We might as well be. Same rules. You want to say something, support it. Otherwise, don’t throw it out there because you just make your argument weak. Kind of like people who believe in God.”

Ms. McAllister changes the subject and effectively ends the discussion. It’s surprising that she let it go on as long as she did. The conversation might be over but the glaring between Drew and Tierney continues until the end of class, and I wonder if they might start ripping each other’s clothes off right here.

***

Nastya

“Go sit. I’ve got it.” Josh nudges me away from the sink after we’ve cleared the dishes from dinner. I eat here more often than not now. It’s the only time I ever consume an actual meal. He makes me real food and I keep him in desserts.

“You cooked. I can wash the dishes.”

“No. You can’t.” He pulls the sponge out of my hands and turns off the tap while I go clear off the rest of the table and dump the dishes in the sink. We’ve fallen into an oddly domestic pattern and it’s kind of pathetic when you stop to think about why.

“I can’t wash the dishes?” I ask, disbelieving.

“No.” He shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“Because you suck at it.”

“I suck at it?” Who sucks at washing dishes? It’s not brain surgery. It’s cleaning the food off of a pan.

“Yes. How can you not know this? I have to rewash the dishes every night after you leave.”

“You do not.” Does he?

He looks at me and I know it’s true.

“You’re anal-retentive.”

“Yes, I like to eat off clean dishes. I have issues,” he deadpans.

I think of how low I’ve sunk. I don’t even have the ability to clean a dish properly. He cooks, he cleans up the dishes, he builds freaking furniture. I feel useless around here. The dryer buzzes and I figure I can do something.

“Fine. I’ll go fold the clothes.” I turn to head into the laundry room.

“No, you won’t. Just sit.”

“I can’t fold clothes, either?”

“You are not folding my underwear.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. It’s weird.” He reaches across me and pulls open a drawer full of dishtowels with a dripping wet hand. “Here. Dry.” He snaps the towel at my chest, splattering me with water in the process.

I grab it out of his hands. “Maybe I’ll just go get a pair of your boxer shorts and dry the dishes with those.” Childishness is not below me.

“How do you know I wear boxer shorts?”

“Just hoping.” The alternative is so unappealing.

He shrugs, handing me a plate. “Go ahead. You’re the one who has to eat off of them.”

“No one likes you,” I reply, because muttering under my breath, like a surly teenager, is cool.

I end up using the towel and Josh is right. He does wash the dishes better than I do. Mostly because I’m lazy when it comes to any kind of cleaning but he doesn’t need to know that.

“What was with Drew and Tierney today in English?” I ask.

“What? The God thing? Drew and Tierney always argue. Drew would argue the merits of celibacy if Tierney was against it.”

“Maybe. It just seemed personal.”

“Drew likes to piss her off. He was just messing with her today. He could have argued her into the ground if he wanted.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t. He’ll destroy anyone in debate.” It’s impressive. If he feels like it, he’ll verbally assault someone to the point where they can barely stand when it’s over. He won every round at the tournament we attended a few weeks ago and he didn’t even pull out the full arsenal of charm.

“He didn’t have to. She has no chance up against him. It wasn’t even worth his effort.” It’s true. That’s just Drew. He just does it for fun until he gets bored. He’s like a cat batting a lizard around until it’s too maimed to play with anymore.

“Why does McAllister let it go? It wasn’t even what you were supposed to be discussing.”

“That’s how she gets to know everyone. She can figure you out a lot easier if she just lets you go and listens. Finds out how you think. Learns your strengths and weaknesses.” It’s like recon. I’m impressed. But it’s not the most efficient when you only have two people arguing.

“No one else even got involved,” I say.

“No one else is stupid enough to want to debate the existence of God. It’s an unwinnable argument.” He finishes putting the last of the clean dishes back into the cabinets.

“On which side?”

“Either.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“Yes,” he answers definitively. My expression must betray me because he asks, “What?”

“I’m just surprised. I didn’t think you would.”

“Because I’m cursed and everyone around me dies?” he asks unemotionally.

I don’t want to give him affirmation, but it is what I was thinking.

“I believe in God, Sunshine. I’ve always believed that God exists,” he says.

And what he says next isn’t self-pity or angst or melodrama. It’s truth.

“I just know that he hates me.”

Maybe what he says should floor me, but it doesn’t even make me blink. Maybe I should jump in immediately and tell him that he shouldn’t think that way. That, of course, God doesn’t hate him. That it’s a ridiculous thing to believe. Except, it’s not. Nothing about it is ridiculous. When you watch every person you love systematically removed from your life until at seventeen years old there is no one left, how can you think anything else? It makes such perfect sense that the only thing that surprises me is that I didn’t think of it myself.

CHAPTER 27

Josh

“You look ridiculous.”

Sunshine is already in my garage at eight o’clock, dressed to go to a party with Drew. She hates the parties, but he gets her to go every time.

Our routine has become, well, routine. We do homework, make dinner and then hang out in the garage. Sometimes she leaves for a while to run before she ends up back here sanding down wood or looking over my shoulder and asking a hundred questions about every single thing I’m doing. She’ll sand down anything and everything but she won’t go near any of the power tools because she doesn’t trust her hand.

“What? You don’t think it works? I may not change them back.” She looks down at the old worn out work boots she’s borrowed from me. They are enormous on her feet and she has them pulled and laced as tightly as possible to hold them on. She walked in earlier in the most torturous black dress imaginable and open-toed shoes. I have too many tools going today, so she only got to stay if she changed the shoes. Part of me hoped she’d choose the leaving option so I wouldn’t have to keep looking at her in that dress and struggling to keep my dick in check, but she didn’t put me out of my misery. Weeks ago, when I finally accepted the fact that she wasn’t going away, I promised myself I wouldn’t go anywhere near her. I’m not that self-destructive. But on days when she walks in wearing tight black dresses and my work boots, I wonder how long I can keep that promise.

“You sure you won’t come?” she asks. She always asks when she’s going out with Drew. But I won’t subject myself to that, even to be close to her. Drew pulls into the driveway and saves me from having to answer.

“Nice boots. I like it. Maybe I’ll let you keep those on.”

She flips him off but it means nothing.

“You should come,” he says to me. “I can hook you up.”

“Hook yourself up. I’m good.”

“Yeah, we know.” He looks at Nastya. “I’m good, too. I have my own personal Sunshine to keep me warm.”

Something in me snaps with that. He goes out with her, he touches her, he says shit no one should be allowed to get away with to her. But he cannot call her Sunshine. I’m nailing a board down over my anger so I don’t blow up. They’ll be out of here in a minute and it’ll be over. I wish they’d get out of here now.

“Call me Sunshine again, and I will murder you, cocksucker.”

I don’t know whose head spins faster, mine or Drew’s, but I’m the speechless one in this garage right now. Once I register the words, my shock has to compete with my amusement and I fight the smile because, obviously, she doesn’t like him calling her Sunshine any more than I do.

I’m not sure when she made the decision to speak to him, but I know it wasn’t at this moment. I may not have figured out much about her but I have picked up on the fact that everything she does is a choice. She considers the repercussions for every action she takes. The girl does not understand the word spontaneous. She plans every breath.

“You talked? You talked! She talked!” He looks at me for my reaction but there isn’t one. I’m surprised, but I’m not shocked. I’m still trying to stifle a smile.