Page 38 of Rot

Tonight would be the real test for us. See what he’d do now that I was on birth control and could, theoretically, fuck Jordan with no protection. See what I’d do if he went for Dana. We’d both be tested.

Were we ready for it? Probably not, but I couldn’t let this last forever. This back and forth, pretend to hate but want at the same time, hot and cold crap. If there was anything I knew, it was that you could never count on tomorrow. Sometimes you only had today to do the things you had to.

Time slowed to a crawl until it hit seven, and then Jordan came to pick me up for our little date. I said goodbye to Aunt Maggie, who was sitting in the living room in her PJs, watching something on the TV. My mother was nowhere to be found, of course. And as for Elias… I was pretty damn sure he’d be watching me go from the upstairs window.

Night had fallen, but Aunt Maggie had turned on the porch lights. Jordan waited for me in his car, and before I got in, I made sure I smiled and acted all happy so Elias would see. I didn’t so much as glance toward the house once; I wanted him to think Jordan had me wrapped around his finger, that I’d turned into some simpering girl who only wanted her crush.

“You look great,” Jordan spoke, grinning at me as he backed up out of the driveway. “Where do you want to eat?”

“Anywhere’s fine.” He reached over the center console for my hand, and I let him take it, let his fingers grasp mine even though I internally recoiled at his touch. It was a hell of a lot of work to pretend I was fine, that his nearness didn’t aggravate me to my core.

Blackrain didn’t have much in the way of restaurants, so we had to leave town and go to the next one over for a McDonald’s—another place I’d never been, since fast food was the last thing my grandmother would let me eat growing up. Jordan couldn’t believe it: a person in America who’d never had McDonald’s before?

Yeah, I guess it was a strange miracle, but nevertheless, I’d lose my McDonald’s virginity tonight.

I got the chicken nuggets meal, while Jordan got one of the cheeseburgers. His burger looked all right, but the nuggets… oh, they had this tasty, golden breading on them. And they were hot and fresh with the perfect crunch. I decided I liked to dip them in ketchup, which horrified Jordan.

And the fries. Oh, God, the fries. Golden and equally as delicious as the nuggets, the fries were heaven in my mouth. More than tasty. I could eat them every single day for the rest of my life and never tire of them.

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. A small one. Plus, didn’t want to get fat eating this all the time, but damn, was it good. I could see why people liked it so much.

Jordan scarfed down his food in the blink of an eye, and then he watched me eat mine with a smile on his face. “You really like it, don’t you?” he asked, chuckling.

“It’s good,” I said, and I meant it. Usually food for me was a miss; eating was more a chore than anything else. Nothing really tasted good to me. But this stuff… this stuff made my taste buds go nuts in the best way.

All Jordan could do was chuckle more. I didn’t think it was funny, but what did I know?

I took my time in finishing the fries, mostly because I wanted to give Elias some time to arrive at the party and look for me, all worried. If I was right, he’d be there, too pissed about me being with Jordan to let Dana hang all over him.

Then again, I wasn’t in his head, so I couldn’t be too sure.

It was almost eight when we were back in the car, returning to Blackrain’s outer limits. “Can I ask you something?” I waited until Jordan nodded before saying, “Are your parties always thrown in the woods?”

That got him to laugh. “Well… yeah? I mean, we don’t really have anywhere else. It isn’t like in the movies, where someone has a parent always out of town, or the rich person always hosts it at their house—we don’t have any of those at Blackrain. Well, except maybe you now—”

“Technically, I’m not rich. My grandmother is.” Or, well, my mother, since she had access to her bank accounts now.

Jordan’s hands gripped the wheel tighter. “Why are you here? I mean, you could’ve gone anywhere. Why did you come to Blackrain? Why move in with the Whitenbakers? If you have money, then—”

He would’ve kept rambling if I didn’t interject, so I did: “We had to leave home due to some circumstances that were out of our control. We didn’t have time to plan a fun vacation or buy a house. We just had to get out.”

“Oh, shit. That sounds bad.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Even though I tried not to remember that night, the night everything had changed for my mother and me, the memories came flying back anyway, plucking me out of reality and depositing me into the past.

I walked with an unsteady pace, my bare feet sliding on the wood floor in the hall. I made it about five feet from my grandmother’s room, and then I needed some support, so I turned and leaned my back against the wall, leaning my head onto the wall and staring at the ceiling. It was late, but the hall light was on, and that light blinded me more and more the longer I stared at it.

My knees wobbled, something they’d never done before, and then they did something else new: they gave out.

I sunk to my ass, slouching. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I set my arms on them, my eyes now on the wood floor. My breath came unevenly, as if I couldn’t quite catch it.

I wasn’t rattled. It was something else taking hold of me, threatening to choke me, something I couldn’t name, not in that moment. Later on, I’d realize it was nothing but the rot, the thing that had slept inside of me my whole life, taking hold of me every now and then and reminding me that I was different from everyone else.

My ears heard my mother’s shrieking from inside the bedroom, her wails, her cries. She pleaded with my grandmother, but to no avail. Over and over again, she tried, sounding quite insane herself.

But maybe that’s because she was. Maybe I didn’t get the rot all from my father. Maybe, just maybe I’d inherited a kernel of it from Mother Dearest. Locked away for damn near my whole life, only recently coming out and returning to the world outside her psychiatric institute. It was possible she’d gotten locked up because she was a danger, not just to herself, but to me.

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