Page 8 of Wanted Beta

“I had to pee, real bad, for like four hours or something.”

“You were kidnapped, Beth. The guy drugged you and stuffed you into his closet, and that’s all you were worried about?”

“They’re really nice jeans. You know. You saw them yesterday.”

She shakes her head. “I give up!”

“It’s the plastic noodles,” I tell her. “They’ll make you suicidal for sure.”

“You’re exhausting, you know that, right?”

“You love me anyway.”

“Well, I kind of have to. You’re my sister.”

She finishes her veggies and leaves the rest of the plastic looking noodles.

“Hey, thanks,” I murmur, catching her attention with my quiet tone.

She gives me a questioning glance. “For what?”

I bite back the response I immediately want to give.

The pizza was amazing, sure, but she did something much bigger than that when she let me in to her apartment.

“For letting me stay here. After everything, I just … I didn’t want to be alone in that dorm room.”

She moves over to my seat and leans in to hug me from the side. “Anytime.”

I know she means it, so I stop myself from saying something dumb to turn it into a joke.

I take the side hug, and I hug back awkwardly.

When she lets go my vision feels a little blurry.

I don’t cry, but it feels like I’m close to an emotional outpouring.

Let’s just hope I manage to save that messiness for a moment when I’m alone.

If I learned one thing from my last devastating experience, it’s always better to keep the things that can hurt me to myself.

Exposing pain to someone else only ever makes it worse.

Chapter Three

Beth

The last time I cried myself to sleep, I woke up looking like I suddenly developed a serious allergy to shellfish, after spending a whole night at one of those all you can eat seafood places.

When I caught my first glimpse of the puffy, patchy mess that had become my face in the bathroom mirror, I immediately made it sound like I was puking my guts up into the toilet.

I grabbed the toothbrush cup while I started making gagging, puking noises, and I poured mouthwash into it so I could make splashing sounds.

Gotta go as real as you can if you’re trying to pull off a sickness on a school day.

My mom knocked on the door about two minutes later.

“You okay, sweetie?” she called out, likely because she wasn’t sure which one of her daughters were in the bathroom.

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