Page 37 of Deserter

It had most likely started because I lived next door to the school’s biggest gossip. She’d seen just enough to form an opinion without the uncomfortableness of actually coming over to ask me.

“So, I’m late for seventh period. Do you wanna meet up after school? I can give you a lift home.”

I went back to staring blankly at the mirror. “I can’t today. I’ve got to study.”

It also had something to do with the fact that I’d been forbidden from doing anything outside of church, school, and homework.

She squeezed my arm before heading to class and the bathroom fell silent again. I jumped in fright when the last stall popped open.

“Thought she’d never leave,” the girl stated flatly as she lit up a cigarette. “I’m Molly.”

I’d seen her in a couple of my classes. She usually sat in the back, wore dark turtleneck sweaters, and generally didn’t say a word to anyone.

“I’m Celia.” I held out my hand, but Molly just stared at it before exhaling a stream of smoke. “Look, I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke in here.”

“Well, Celia, do I look like I fuckin’ care? For that matter why the fuck do you care?”

She had a point.

“I’ve gotta get to class. It was nice to meet you, Molly.”

“Fucked an entire biker gang.” She giggled. “First of all, it’s a club. And second, like you’d still be breathing after taking on all of them. People are such idiots.”

I paused at the door and turned around. “So, you don’t believe the rumors?”

“Nope. I do, however, think that you paid a debt to the club. There’s no way whoever picked you up shared though. I mean, look at you.”

“How do you know so much about the club?”

Molly climbed up onto the large windowsill. The glass had been painted at one time but was now riddled with the carvings of love-sick girls and women with vendettas.

“My mom paid a debt to the club after her stupid ass boyfriend crossed them and skipped town.” At my dropped jaw, she added, “This was years ago… some guy named Rock. You know him?”

I shook my head, wondering if Grey collected a lot of debts. Maybe he had a different woman in his bed every night. He probably hadn’t thought of me or the fact that my life was screwed up now because of him.

I was a nobody.

“Excuse me,” I fled into a stall and vomited up what little I’d eaten in the cafeteria.

I was as bad as the people who believed the rumors about me; I just had it in my head that a certain blond biker had felt the same spark that I did.

“You knocked up?” Molly asked around the cigarette as she held my hair back, the same way someone might ask for a refill at a restaurant.

I shook my head. At least there was one thing that I didn’t have to worry about. He’d used protection and my period had arrived two days later. “I just—I just thought that maybe it meant something.”

Saying the words aloud made them seem childish.

She took another drag from the cigarette and nodded. “Only one way to find out.”

I flushed the toilet and leaned back against the metal stall. “And how’s that?”

“Tonight’s fight night atLeather & Lace.”

“Fight night?”

Molly leaned against the outside of the stall, observing me with narrowed eyes. “How is it you know so little? Fight night is where the prospects battle it out for their patches. It’s the only time they can go toe to toe with the ranking officers and live to tell about it.”

It was another reminder of how different our worlds were. It should’ve been enough to deter me from my next question, but my heart wasn’t rational.

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