Page 75 of Hollow Child

“Nice to meet you.” Stella smiled up at her, and it was a real one, not one of the forced one she’d used so much as of late when she was pretending things were fine. And suddenly, I didn’t mind so much that she and Harlow were ganging up on me.

“Have you ever been clothes shopping before?” Harlow asked.

Stella shook her head. “I mostly made mine or found it or someone handed me something and hoped it fit.”

“Ugh. I know exactly how that goes. I wore boots that were way too big for me for months,” Harlow commiserated. “But this ismyboutique, and here you’ll be able to find something that’s perfect for you in size, color, and style.”

Harlow took Stella’s hand and started leading her around the room, asking her questions about her preferences and interests as she pulled things off the rack for her.

Within twenty minutes, she gathered a flurry of clothing, and she sent Stella to try it on. The changing room looked like it had been a closet before, but Harlow had updated it with a saloon door and removed any of the shelving to leave plenty of room to move around.

“How are you doing?” Harlow asked me while Stella was busy trying things on.

“Good, good. Everything is going… good,” I replied.

“That bad, huh?” Harlow asked me wryly.

“Everything’s changed so much so fast, but everything is still good,” I said, unable to defend my position any better than that.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you’ve lasted as long as you have. You’ve been here, what? A little over a month?” she asked. “I figured you’d be gone within a week or two.”

“The baby’s too young to travel,” I said. “But why would you even say that? You haven’t seen me in years. You don’t really know me anymore.”

“I lived with you for six months in the Arizona quarantine zone, and I travelled with you for a few weeks,” Harlow reminded me. “I love you, Remy, and I know I’m still alive because of you. But don’t pretend that you don’t run or push people away every chance you get.”

Before I could answer, Stella opened the door and stepped out in a lovely maxi dress. The fabric was black with little red flowers, and Harlow had embellished it with lace on the sleeves and neckline.

“What do you think?” Stella asked, but by her smile, it was obvious that she knew she looked fantastic.

“You are radiant!” Harlow exclaimed.

After a few more enthusiastic compliments toward Stella, Harlow handed me a stack of clothes and shoved me into the changing room to try them on. Meanwhile, she took Stella around the store to pick out jewelry and accessories.

It wasn’t until I was in the changing closet that I noticed that there were two mirrors across from each other on the side walls. It was to give people a full 360 view of themselves in an outfit, but I hated looking in mirrors.

My skin had become an unpleasant reminder of everything I had been through. The scars crisscrossing across my abdomen and back from the medical experiments. The bitemarks on my hip, wrist, and shoulder, all from zombies who had managed to take a bit of my flesh before I killed them. Knife woundson my arms, neck, and chest, a bullet wound in my calf, and an arrow wound in my left arm – all of those were from violent but uninfected humans. The gnarliest of my scars was a twisting on my side from when an elk had nearly gored me three summers ago.

My body looked like a map of all the terrible things that had happened to me.

Boden didn’t feel that way. In the few times I let him see me naked in the dim light of a fireplace, he had told me that I was so beautiful. I knew that he meant it by the look in his eyes, and by the tender, almost reverent way that he touched me.

“Every scar you have, every mark on your body is just a sign that you are still alive,” Boden had told me in a low, emphatic voice. “You have survived and endured, and I wish you had been spared all the pain. But you are here, alive, in my arms, and I can’t think of anything more beautiful than that.”

But he wasn’t here now, so I kept my head down, and I hurried to pull on the dress that Harlow had handed me.

I came out of the changing room to show them how I looked, and it was just in time to hear Stella asking Harlow, “How did you get those scars?”

“Stella!” I yelled, aghast. “You can’t ask someone that!”

“Why not?” Stella seemed genuinely confused. “Everyone can see she has them. Why can’t we talk about them?”

“You just can’t. It’s rude,” I said, once again realizing how sheltered Stella and Max actually were.

“She is right,” Harlow agreed with me, but her tone was much gentler than mine had been. “You shouldn’t ask strangers about their scars because they might not want to talk about them with someone they don’t know. But since you and I are friends now, I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” Stella asked, looking apologetic. “I don’t want to upset you.”

“No, it’s okay.” Harlow was trying out different floral clips in Stella’s auburn hair as she spoke. “Some years ago, I ended up in this place owned by the literal worst people in the world, a family called the Loths. They’d once farmed cattle, but now they farm zombies.

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