Page 42 of Gilded Fake

“Wait,” Dixie says to Gloria as she passes the island inside. “I made you a drink.”

“Why?” Gloria asks, pulling up short.

Dixie steps around the island and throws the contents of the drink in Gloria’s face. It splashes into her hair, splatters over the round globes of her gorgeous tits, soaking her soft pink dress. She gasps in shock as ice tumbles and skids across the floor at their feet. Then she wipes her eyes and blows out a breath, drops of soda spraying off her lips. “And here I was defending you,” she says, shaking her head. “What an idiot.”

“That’s for going after my man,” Dixie says, ignoring her words. “Get your skanky, STD ass away from him. How many times do I have to tell you, he’s not interested.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to fight for him,” Gloria says, wiping her face again. “If he wants to fight for me, that’s his choice.”

“Fight for you?” Dixie asks incredulously, snorting with laughter.

Gloria shrugs. “No accounting for taste.”

“He’s not going to fight for you,” Dixie fumes, her eyes narrowing as she takes a threatening step toward Lo. “And if you go after him, I’ll—I’ll tell Royal what you did last year.”

“Why would he care?” Gloria asks.

“Maybe he won’t,” Dixie says, tossing her head. “But do you really want to risk it and find out? After what he did to him last time he was pissed?”

“If you’d put Colt in danger, you don’t love him, so what’s the point in holding on so hard?” Gloria asks. “Is it really just to say you won? That’s pathetic, even for you.”

“I love him enough to do what’s best for him, which is keeping him away from a psycho like you,” Dixie hisses. “Now leave, skank.”

“You’re not going to listen, but I’ll give you some advice anyway,” Gloria says, glancing from the empty room onto the balcony, where I stand smoking, pretending I’m not overhearing their whole argument. “Some guys just aren’t the commitment type. What’s the saying? You can’t make a husband out of a ho.”

I push off the railing, ready to storm inside and defend myself, but I have no right. I’ve proven to them both that I’m trash, that I can’t be trusted, that I’m a cheater just like my father. It all comes full circle in the end. The apple and the tree and all that shit.

“You couldn’t make a husband out of a guy down on one knee with a ring in his hand,” Dixie says to Gloria. “You’re the ho, and everyone knows you can’t make a wife out of a ho.”

“You never know,” Gloria says. “I would’ve thought you can’t make a girlfriend out of a dog, but you’re living proof.”

Dixie huffs. “Whatever. You’re just jealous because no one’s going to want to marry you now that you’re all nasty and run through. You’re not wifey material, and I am, and you can’t stand it that I won.”

“I don’t know what material I am,” Gloria says. “I never got to figure it out, so I’m doing that now. The last thing I want is to saddle some poor guy with my baggage before I’ve sorted it out. Not everyone wants to be a wife. I’m okay with being a wild card.”

“If that’s what you have to tell yourself so you don’t put a gun down your throat. The truth is no one cares about you, and your life is sad and empty.”

“On that note, I’ll be going,” Gloria says, drawing herself up. “I hope you like the taste of pussy, because you’ll be tasting mine on your boyfriend’s tongue when you kiss him goodnight.”

The air is sucked from the entire building, but before I can intervene, Gloria’s gone, and Dixie’s mixing another drink like nothing happened. She obviously doesn’t know I overheard, but I still can’t figure out her reaction. She must think Gloria’s lying. Otherwise she’d be eviscerating me in front of everyone. She never misses an opportunity to make herself look like the victim when there’s an audience, and this time, she’d be right to do it.

I’m no better than Gloria ever was, even when she was the bully queen. I’m no more worthy of the throne than she is, and I’m certainly not worthy of Dixie’s devotion, stifling as it is. I’m a liar just like both of them. Maybe we all deserve what we get—each other.

Guilt twists hard inside me, and I’m about to go put an end to the evening since prom is over now, but before I can, Duke appears at my elbow with a beer in each hand. His nose is busted and his lip is cracked and swollen, but he’s shaken off his crowd of doting admirers for the moment.

“Hey, homo,” he says. “You gonna go up to the roof and party with us?”

“Why?” I ask, snatching one of his beers. “You gonna throw me off this time?”

I down the whole beer, trying to drown the itch that won’t quit, the incessant thoughts of the pills that rattle in the back of my head like the medicine did in the bottles on my bedside table when I came home from the hospital and thought they were a fix, not a trap. I listened when they whispered they could help, believed the seductive lies from the mouthless little white demons that have possessed me.

“I was gonna drink that,” Duke protests, scowling.

“I know.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Did you think you were the only rude boy in Faulkner?”

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