twisted | ✔️

chapter seven

"The wedding's literally in six hours," I said to Emmy as she drove us down the highway, the sign welcoming us to Santa Clara whipping past us in a green blur. "Leave it to you to wait until the last minute to do something like this."

"I guess procrastination just comes naturally to some of us," Emmy said, dramatically dusting her hair off her shoulder.

"And leave it you to find something killer while we're here," I continued.

"Nothing as killer as that bridesmaid's dress looked on you," she said.

"Yeah, well, that dress is only obligatory." The car got quiet, and she reached over to squeeze my hand. I looked over at her—my best friend who picked me up from a strange curb, my shoes on the street beside me, in the middle of a strange neighborhood in a city thirty miles away at nine o'clock at night, no questions asked—and thanked her.

"For what?" she asked, pulling off onto the exit ramp. "Don't even be so ridiculous. I would pick you up literally anywhere under literally any circumstances."

I watched the city roll by, the sun hovering above the trees, not even high enough in the sky yet to melt the frost that clung to blades of grass and to the tops of buildings. The first signs of life were just starting to peek through the street, people gathered outside of coffee shops, dogs walking their owners down the sidewalk, and three years ago I never could have imagined being here.

"Remember high school?" I said.

"Oh," she said, caught off guard, "dredging up those terrible memories, are we."

"What are you talking about? You had it so easy."

"Please. You know how some people can look back and say that they had a great time, like the best time of their lives even, and then other people wish they could go back in time and change who they were? Well, I'm supposed to be in that first group, but I was just a straight up bitch, and I wish I hadn't been, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm glad it's over, is all."

"You were the queen, though," I said as Emmy turned into the parking structure of the Westfield Valley Fair mall.

"That meant nothing," she said, pulling into an empty parking space. "Like, I thought it did at the time, but that entire four years doesn't mean shit now, you know?"

And my heart seized up in my chest, because I knew she was talking generally, about the high school experience as a whole, that she wasn't picking out any specific incident, but I could have given her a thousand different incidents that tainted everything that came after them, that affected the very person I had become. She must have seen the hurt across my face, because she put the car into park and turned to me.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean it like that. Not the entire—or, not that everything that happened didn't matter. I was just saying—"

"It's okay," I interrupted. "I know what you meant. You don't have to . . . explain. Can we just get this day over with?"

We ended up in the dressing area of a little boutique, Emmy dragging me into one of the rooms after thirty minutes of browsing, modeling for me each of the dresses she'd picked out. I shook my head no as she turned to me in a red high-low piece.

"You know you could just wear white and completely ruin the evening," I said as she pulled the dress over her head and reached for a strapless black one. I couldn't help but admire the way she looked in a bra and a pair of high heels on her feet, tall and slim with flawless skin. I remembered looking at myself in that bridal shower mirror and hating every second of it.

"I'm not looking to get my eyes clawed out, thank you very much," she responded, twirling around, looking at herself from all angles. "But do you think I should chance bringing Austin with me tonight? I don't actually want to mess up any of her, like, layout or anything. What do you think of this one?"