The Daughters of Men

Chapter 12

"Okay, I'm not going to lie," Holly mumbled through a mouth of food, "these burgers are delicious."

"Grandpa and Grandma know how to grill meat," Mara admitted sheepishly.

Holly and Mara were currently standing on the balcony of Mara's apartment, a small space with creaky wooden planks for a floor and a rusting black railing. They were each seated in two long, white chairs with a plate in their hands.

"So, Mara," Holly began, "we've had a bonding moment where I pinned your dad to a wall and almost made your mother faint."

"Thanks for that," Mara grumbled.

"I think we're pretty close now, yeah? What's your beef with Cutler?"

Mara swallowed her bite of burger and sighed. "Honestly, I don't know. It's just scary. It's on the other side of the country and I'm already unstable."

"Unstable?" Holly questioned. "How?"

Flushing red, Mara replied, "No, I just--I don't know what I meant, so let's--it's nothing, okay?"

"Woah, calm down there, cowgirl," Holly chuckled. "No need to get so flustered. One way or another, I'm going to figure out what your deal is. And whatever it is, I promise it's not as bad as you think."

"What does that even mean?" Mara asked seriously.

"I'll be honest, I'm not really sure," Holly confessed, smiling to herself. "But it sounds good. Saying it out loud. My buddy, Rose, she used to say that to me all the time. 'It's not as bad as you think'. She told me that right before I broke up with my girlfriend of three years."

"You had a girlfriend?"

Holly raised an eyebrow. "Please don't be one of those people."

"I'm not," Mara promised. "Just unexpected, I guess."

"The point," Holly continued loudly, "is that Rose used to say it to me to get me to do things I didn't want to do but definitely needed to do. Break up with Brooke, get a job, vote, that sort of thing."

Suddenly, Mara began to laugh really loudly, causing her eyes to water. "To vote? You needed a pep talk to vote?"

"It was not a pep talk," Holly assured. "It was just a small speech to get me motivated to go out and vo--"

"That's what a pep talk is, you walnut! You needed a pep talk to go vote!"

"It's a big decision," Holly growled. "Okay, my vote could pick one guy over a different guy to be president. That's a fact."

Mara bit her lip a bit as she calmed her laughter down. "You're too funny. Let's say then that I'm Holly and you're Rose and you've busted out the big guns."

"It's not as bad as it seems," Holly repeated. "The big guns."

"What would I do then? Just follow you around like a puppy?" Mara asked.

"Um, you could," Holly agreed. "That's a way to go about it. You could also, you know, not do that. And just act like a regular person."

"Regular people?" Mara replied, making a strange face. "I'm not sure I qualify. Normal people can't teleport from Los Angeles to Milwaukee."

"You can teleport?" Holly asked.

"Yeah, on a field trip as a senior," Mara explained. "It's how I realized I had powers. I traveled to Milwaukee accidentally. Luckily I popped in a girls' bathroom. Unluckily, someone else was in the stall."