Page 8 of To Die For

“You an everything-on-your-burger kind of guy?” she asked.

“What other kind makes sense?” he said while performing a threat evaluation on everyone in the place. “You going for a shake and fries, too?”

“I’m already too fat.”

Devine didn’t really know how to respond to this. His sister hadbeen much older than he was so he had little experience interacting with girls Odom’s age. And he didn’t want to in any way comment on, well, her physical appearance. But still, he felt he needed to say something because she seemed to want a response.

“Your body is just gearing up to grow like a weed and… Well, it needs the extra weight to do that,” he finished awkwardly, and drew a deep breath.Okay, that was a mess.

“My mom was tall. I mean really tall. But my dad was just average.”

“Height is usually robustly handed down in the gene pool. So don’t be surprised if you land some basketball scholarships for college,” Devine added jokingly.

“You’re tall,” she said, looking up at him.

“And so are my dad and my siblings.”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters. Or parents anymore,” she added glumly.

They got their food and carried it to an open table. Odom had opted for a strawberry milkshake and large fries to go with her bacon double cheeseburger with extra everything.

As they were eating, Devine glanced out the window and spotted something curious. He turned back to Odom. “I’m really sorry about your mom and dad.”

She initially answered this with a scowl. “You didn’t even know them. Don’t say shit to try to make me like you.”

“I’m just being human, Betsy. It’s tragic when people die like that. And I know it must have been awful for you to be there when it happened.”

She bit into her burger and drank from her shake before answering.

“It sucked. I mean, I couldn’t do anything.”

“You did your best. You tried to revive them with Narcan.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Nar-what?”

“Narcan. It can bring back people who have overdosed on opioids. But… but you know that, right?”

“Opioids? My parents didn’t use drugs.”

“I was told that they overdosed and you tried to revive them.”

“That’s not true!” she said heatedly, her features full of agitation.

People at other tables glanced nervously over at them.

Devine noted this and said, “Okay, okay. I believe you.”

But he was thinking,What the hell is going on?

He watched as Odom gathered a handful of fries together and stuffed them into her mouth. She then followed that with several exaggerated slurps of her milkshake.

She glared at Devine. “Opioids! That is such bullshit.”

“Can you tell me about the day it happened?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m interested. Unless you have a good reason not to tell me.”

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