Page 73 of Groupthink

“I’m sure you don’t. But since you’re floating down shit creek, you’ll find yourself using it a lot more.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Again, prove me wrong,” I dared with a surrendering gesture. “Anyway, I’d say I wish we could have met under different circumstances, but that would be a lie. I wish we’d never met.”

Grace scowled. “You’re such a jerk.Ever thinkthatmight be what you need to make peace with?”

“Oh, I’m already at peace with it, baby,” I sneered. “I’m perfectly fine with being an asshole—it’s the world that has a problem with it.”

I took a step toward her and got in her face to emphasize my words. Lowered my voice. “And that’s something you’ll come to realize about exercising your demons, PG Princess: it’s way easier to get those motherfuckers doing jumping jacks when they’re trapped in your head than when they’re running around outside of it.”

She fixed me with a defiant stare, and I didn’t feel like a six-foot-four hulking dude anymore. I felt like a kindergartener.

“I wish you the best of luck,” she said, looking down her nose at me.

“Yeah, fuck you too,” I growled, my fingers wrapped around the cold, heavy pen. “I’m gonna give you one last piece of advice: if you figure out any of them aren’t real—that they’re ink-people, donottell them.Period.”

She stared at me blankly, patiently, as if waiting for a child to finish a tantrum.

I didn’t even know why I was still talking to her; every word that left my mouth after I got what I came for was a waste of breath.

I let out a disgruntled sigh, started walking, then tossed over my shoulder, “By the way, take your name and phone number off your mailbox. Stupidest shit in the world.”

She didn’t say anything.

I resisted turning back to check if she was still on the bench.

I wanted her to yell something back at me. To fight me for the pen, to make me feel like garbage for the way I treated her.

To fight back.

But then again, she wasn’t Summer.

I walked through the shady tunnel of trees toward my motorcycle waiting on the asphalt nearby. I finally looked down to check my phone, expecting to see a barrage of texts from Summer.

Ilivedfor her constant berating. They made me feel shitty, but at least shitty was a feeling.

My phone screen was blank.

That was odd. She usually—

“Hey Bobo.”

I jumped.

Summer leaned against my parked motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket and a deranged smile.

She tilted her head. “Who wasthat?”

Summer asked it lightly, casually, but her eyes narrowed with suspicion. Her newly blackened hair fanned in the wind.

To anyone else, I would have said‘fuck off,’ ‘don’t worry about it,’ or ‘no one.’But to Summer,enhancedSummer, I felt the trained, overpowering urge to explain myself.

“Someone who found something I dropped,” I evaded, holding my breath.

If I lied to her, she’d detect it.

I could tell she didn’t buy my half-truth.

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