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Chapter 23

CARA

I had seen Bridgette in battle. When she and Quinn were dating in high school, before she handed him to me, she had always been a fighter. Girls would as much as come close to Quinn--or any of the boys she dated--and they would go home crying and they would be lucky if they would arrive without a broken nose or scratches.

Looking at her now as she placed her hands on her hips was not only awkward because she was using my body, it was also scary. I didn’t know I could look that mean as she stared at the heads of the girls crowding the door of the diner. She reached out, grabbed the arm of one of the girls--the one we assumed to be Melissa--and pulled her away from the door.

“What the--” the girl started to say but stopped short to her foul words when she saw Bridgette. “Hey, lady, are you crazy? Let go of me.”

I wanted to stop her, really, but I remembered the shy, innocent girl sitting inside the diner having a great time with a great boy. So I stepped away to make room for Bridgette as she pulled Melissa further away from the door. The other girls were still in shock they only stood rooted in their spot as Melissa cried out about her arm.

“I know what you are up to,” I heard Bridgette say. I never imagined my voice could be that scary. “You take one step inside that diner and you’re dead.”

“Hey!” Melissa said, harshly pulling her arm away. “Who the hell are you?”

Bridgette smiled at her as if looking at the tiniest fly in the planet, crossed her arms over her chest and said, “I am your worst nightmare if you take your fake Prada inside that door.”

Behind her, Melissa’s friends were eyeing her footwear as the girl gaped at Bridgette.

“I can tell.”

“These shoes are legit!”

“Yeah, right,” Bridgette retorted, rolling her eyes at me.

I had to force out a laugh--that would sound demeaning. It was for Bernadette after all.

“Now, ladies, if you just all turn around and leave Bernadette and Todd alone, I can be very forgiving.”

Melissa was shooting murder at Bridgette but she must have realized that she was facing Lucifer’s mistress so she turned and strutted down the opposite path shouting at her friends, “They are not fakes!”

Bridgette was beaming at me when the girls finally disappeared. I had to pull her across the street to escape the looks the onlookers were giving us. “That was not very nice,” I told her.

“But admit it, it saved Bernadette.”

“Yeah, right,” I said with a sigh, looking at Bernadette now talking to Todd who just came back. “But you still can’t protect her from those goons at school.”

“She should learn to stick up to herself,” Bridgette said. “And that’s what we’re going to teach her later.”

BRIDGETTE

We decided to enlist ourselves as Bernadette’s chaperones without her knowledge and she was shocked to find us waiting for her outside the theme park.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Just making sure you don’t get too carried away on your first day,” I told her with a wink.

Todd said goodbye to her and waved at us before leaving.

“Let’s get you home, young lady,” I opened the door for her. “You did great today.”