Page 2 of Amethyst Flame
Whatever. For one blissful long weekend, I’d be out from under Dane’s suspicious eye, away from Rique’s attempted coups, beyond even Mom’s well-meaning worries about what I was doing with my life.
The anticipation was sweeter than freezie syrup.
And probably just as bad for me.
Whatever! I needed this.
I lasted nine and a half minutes and then I left. Rique glared at me—goodbye to you too, loser—but Amanda was already in the parking lot, sitting in the passenger seat of her boyfriend’s car. The car was running, a countryandwestern tune banging from the subwoofer, and they were both heads down over their phones.
Ignoring the ninety-degree late-afternoon sunlight—I was a Phoenix native; I didn’t sweat until triple digits—I waited a minute. Well, I waited a second, then I knocked on her window, out of time with the music.
She held up a hold-on finger while still tapping with her thumbs.
Mm-hmm.
With a flick of my hand in a [cut] gesture, I sent a purple pulse through the glass. A little trickier since any barrier could diffuse and confuse my moths, but I’d been working on this too.
Her head jerked up, and she said something to her boyfriend that I couldn’t hear over the wail of gee-tar and something about the death of a beloved truck. (Just like to point out that Amanda’s boyfriend drove a Kia.) He shrugged and angled his phone toward her, which was still working.
Unlike hers.
She opened the door, releasing another musical wail about a dead dog this time, and got out. Still on his phone, the boyfriend reversed the Kia and drove away as the next verse kicked in about the deceased girlfriend.
Whoever said love was dead was very, very right.
Amanda scowled at me, at her boyfriend, at her phone, at the world. Unlike Rique, she actuallywasin her high school Earth Day Club, but mostly just to justify being late to work.
“I hate this place,” she told me.
“Me too,” I commiserated.
“Every time I go inside, my phone dies. Now it’s doing it out here too.”
“Bummer. Well, that’ll give you more time to tell Rique what to do.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Whatever power Amanda aspired to, it obviously wasn’t lording over Rique. Without her phone to distract her, she finally looked at me. “Where are you going, again?”
“Vegas.”
“Oh yeah. Have fun. Don’t, like, get accidentally married or whatever.”
“I’ll do my best.” My heart was beating a little faster just thinking about it. The fun part, not the accidentally married part.
Getting away from home for a bit. Drinking a fruity beverage that Ididn’tmake thatdidhave alcohol in it. Meeting Jacob for the first time…
My heart banged again like it had come loose from its moorings in my chest.
That was theonlybanging my body was going to do though, I swore as my ride service car pulled up. I texted Mom, letting her know I was on my way to the airport and that I’d text again when I landed.
She hadn’t been super excited about me going to Las Vegas for a long weekend. She was a mom, after all. But I told her, “But aaaaaall my friends are gonna be there,” with a whine that would’ve impressed even Rique. What could a loving mom say except “don’t drink, don’t drink too much, don’t drink too much and forget to watch your drink, keep all your drinks with you at all times, here are some activated charcoal capsules to take immediately if you think your drink has been tampered with.”
Then she also gave me condoms, a package of dental dams, a travel first aid kit, sunscreen, a twenty-dollar bill (“Pin this inside your bra”) and then another twenty in quarters (“Put these into some pretty slot machines”). Having a nurse for a mom was both excruciatingly embarrassing and kinda awesome.
When she drove me to the Freeze for my last shift and gave me a hug, I gave her back one of the condoms. “For when Mr. Morales comes over later.”
She gasped. “Imogen Rose Taylor. How dare you?”
“Dare, Mom, dare.”
