Page 18 of Sugar Coated Secrets

He interrupts. “You know what? All of them.”

My hand hovers over the screen of my tablet. That means I would have sold out, and it’s only 8:45 a.m.

A few seconds stretch to almost a minute.

“Is that okay?” He says each word slowly.

I swallow.

“Of course.”

"How about dinner?"

“We close at six.”

When he doesn’t reply, I look up, and his eyes are fixated on my mouth. I hate when he does that. He never used to do it, except that day alone in his car.

“I meant dinner with me. You and me Friday night?”

Katie starts having a coughing fit. I look over, and I can tell she is faking it, but I ask, “Are you okay, Katie?”

She pulls out a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’ll be fine,” she says, but she’s still coughing, and her eyes are wide.

I turn to Ford. “I can’t. I have plans.”

He raises his brows skeptically. “How about Saturday?”

“Weekends aren’t a good time.”

He frowns, looking annoyed and suspicious. “Oh?—”

“I don’t want to go out with you.”

I don’t think anyone has ever rejected Ford Keller. In another universe, I would have said yes, flushed, and felt those little butterflies I used to feel when I tried to get him to notice me in high school, but those butterflies turned to knives, cutting me on the inside so I could bleed out.

I should scream at him and tell him he is a monster, but I don’t. I can’t because I know there will be an underlying threat after it. Another lawyer will pay me a visit.

“Is there a?—”

I cut him off. “Anything else I can get you? Coffee?”

“Coffee would be good.”

“Good,” I say, my stomach churning. “Katie can finish ringing you up. Have a great rest of your day, Mr. Keller.”

I turn away and push through the door to the kitchen, letting it swing close.

I slide down onto the floor, placing my hands over my face, stifling a sob. I cry because the one boy I liked took everything from me, and now I’m not sure if he was part of it or not.

It’s been four years, and he still makes me feel a strange mix of longing, fear, and hatred.

Four Years Ago

DULCE

I glance at my phone with a flutter in my chest like tiny wings beating simultaneously, still not believing the message I received from Ford asking me out to prom. The Friday, May 31stprom ticket I thought was useless is taped to the old dresser mirror in my bedroom.

I turn to the side in the floor-length mirror, giving myself a critical once-over in my mother’s prom dress and pushing the fear from facing everyone at school.

---