By Loving the Killer

More Drinks

"I'm tired," I whine, but it has no effect on Amorie. She only smiles and hops on the balls of her feet as she pulls the nail polish from the drawer in my bathroom counter.

"Sit," she commands, using a bottle of polish to gesture towards the toilet.

I shake my head and sit down on the toilet seat, kicking my legs out towards Amorie. She crosses her legs and beats the bottle against her palm, rocking her head back and forth to the sound it makes, then bends down so her face is inches from my foot.

My nails are a bright pastel yellow. She smiles proudly at her work and extends her arms, presenting my feet to me, then shoves the bottle back in its bag. She hands me the red polish with an innocent grin.

We trade spots. My hands tremble as I glide the brush down her nails, and I keep having to wipe away the polish I accidently paint on her skin. She laughs.

"I thought you were good at painting," she laughs.

I shake my head. "Canvas and feet are two very different mediums," I mutter.

She laughs and I pull away, waiting for her to stop before I begin painting again.

"Okay, I'm done," she giggles, sitting still once more.

When I finish, her nails don't look awful, and she laughs excitedly when she looks down at them.

"I love it," she smiles, swinging her feet. "Okay, now. . . we should sneak into the kitchen and get snacks."

I shake my head. "We should go to bed. We have school tomorrow."

Amorie scoffs. "And? No matter, we should stay up anyway."

"No," I say. "It's one in the morning and my head is pounding from getting pummeled with a textbook. Can we please go to bed?"

Her smile falls and she nods. "Yeah, sorry," she says. "I didn't realize your head was hurting."

I place my bag of nail polish back in its drawer and climb under the covers with Amorie, reaching over to shut my blinds back.

"Goodnight," she whispers, snuggling further into the blanket.

"Goodnight."

ꙨꙨꙨꙨꙨꙨꙨꙨꙨ

I wave to Peter as I walk down the hall. Stacey cuts her eyes at me, then at him, and says, "Omg, I think he actually took a shower."

I shake my head. "Is it really our business, anyway?"

She scoffs at me. "Okay, since when did you become all high and mighty?" she asks.

"I just don't think we need to be making fun of people like this," I say. "We don't know their story or where they're from."

"Okay?" she says, rolling her eyes. "He's a dick, why does it matter?"

"He's not a dick," I snap. "He's nice, okay?"

"How would you know?"

I tighten the straps of my backpack. "We're partners for the English project, remember? I told you about this the other day."

"Yeah, okay," she sighs. "Whatever, your new bestie is off-limits, got it."

She leaves me at my locker, and I turn to see Peter walking my way. I smile at him as I slip my textbook into its designated spot.

"Hey," I say with a bright smile.

"Hey to you," he says. "How are you?"

I pull my chemistry notebook from my locker. "I'm good," I say. "Did you talk to your mom?"