Skinny • Book 1 In The Reality Series

Katy

Squirming in the uncomfortable, floor bolted metal chair on which I was sent I looked around the room wearily at the orange jumpsuit clad woman sat at identical tables, in identical chairs.

"What do you think they did?" I whispered to Ashton who was sitting next to me, following his gaze to a thicker set woman with a tattoo covered face.

"I don't know." He whispered back, "And I don't really want to find out."

"I just want to get out of here."

"You and me both."

"Where is she?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you."

What if she doesn't come."

"She has to."

"Fifteen minutes left of visitation." A prison guard sat at a desk behind us called out loudly.

"Where is she?" Ashton groaned.

Chewing my lower lip, I scanned the room, once, twice, three times before my eyes landed on a familiar looking girl glowering at me from the corner.

She was paler then when I'd seen her and her face, which before had expertly been covered by makeup was now bare. Her nose was wider then I remembered, her face rounder, her eyes smaller and her skin was pocked by sporadic clusters of acne.

She seemed smaller in the large jumpsuit which dwarfed her small, childlike frame and her aquamarine hair which used to cascade around her shoulders in loose seemingly effortless waves, was now a boring shade of brown which clung limply to her scalp in stringy, straight clumps.

A smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, Gracie pushed herself from the walls and striding over to where Ashton and I sat, stared down at us dangerously as if we were pieces of meat before sitting down in the seat across from us, her handcuffs jingling nosily.

"Katy." She greeted, "I thought you'd never see me. I was standing there the whole time."

"Why didn't you come over?" I questioned.

Seeming to mull to the question over in her mind she smiled and shrugged.

"So tell me." She said leaning forward, causing me to flinch, "How's the crew? Is Sierra still stupid? Is Calum still starving himself? How's Elliot."

"We don't have long." Ashton said before I could answer, "We have something we need to ask you."

"Who's this guy?" Gracie asked, eyeing him up and down before giving an impressed nod, "He yours?"

"Yes." I answered, "I mean no. Not like that... but like... he's with me, but not..."

Raising her eyebrows, Gracie held up her arms in surrender, "It's complicated, I get it, mine and Cal's relationship was the same way."

"You and Calum's relationship was fake." I said slowly, "Just like everything else about you."

"Katy!" Ashton hissed.

Gracie laughed to herself.

"I don't see what's funny." I spat.

"You think I embellish the truth from time to time." She said slowly.

"You lie." I said cooly.

"Sometimes." She admitted, "But when I kissed Calum, it was real. When I rescued a elephant it was real. And when I snuck up behind that stupid circus trainer and pressed my knife to his unsuspecting throat...."

"Stop." I whispered feeling sick.

"And pressed." She continued, "And pulled, slitting him wide open. That was real. The metallic smell of his blood, the feeling of it running down my hand, the sound of it, dripping on the floor, the sound of him, choking on his own blood, the way it gurgle...."