Page 3 of Punishing Penelope

Sandra shrugs. “Where’re you gonna get cigarettes?”

“Store. Come with?”

She looks like she hesitates, then she throws up her hands.

“I wanna look at that new shade of lipstick, anyway, the light pink one.”

“Look?” I raise my eyebrows.

The glint of mischief in her eyes tells me everything—not only look. I grab her hand, then hook arms with her. We both jump off the little stone wall we’ve been perched on, watching the other students as they left school and filed by to the parking lot, lots of them to cars their parents paid for.

It hurts a bit. I hate to admit it, but it makes me want to get back at them for the injustice. I do whatever I can to feel like I exist, too, that my life means something, too. I just don’t know where I’ll go when school’s out in a year.

I suck at math, history’s a drag, but I like English. I like to write, but right now, we’re discussing Shakespeare, and oh my fucking god, it’s killing me.

I don’t know what I want to do with my life, and soon enough, I’ll have to make some hard choices. Try to get grades and get into a university or work retail, live in a trailer, and get one hundred kids with some loser?

I think about Peter Hale. Obnoxious, intense, stupid, cute Peter Hale. He’s not a loser, but he’s too good for me. He’s going places, and I’m not. Why would he want to be with me?

I’ll probably end up with Stephan or someone like him. We’re both going nowhere fast. He’s burning bridges left and right, and I feel like I’m right there with him. No one believes in me, so what’s the point of trying?

But Peter… yesterday. My fucking god, I still tingle.

“You coming?”

Sandra pulls me out of my mind and my depressing thoughts about my bleak future. I glance at her—gorgeous with everything going for her, except her dead dad and the thing with the stepdad locked up for molesting a bunch of kids. That’s all kinds of dark shit. My family seems totally wholesome compared to that. She’s with the hottest guy in school. She sings, dances, acts, and is definitely going places. Unless she gets herself knocked up by Mr. High School Sweetheart Cole Hooper and well… joins me at the cash register at one of the major retailers in town.

“Yeah. Things to do. No time to waste.”

“A packet of cigarettes to steal.” Sandra nudges me with her shoulder.

“They’re loaded. They won’t miss it.”

“They’re not gonna miss the lipstick, either.”

“What’re we doin’ tonight?” I itch for things to happen. I can’t just sit still and do nothing.

“Dance, homework, Cole.”

I groan. Homework. Didn’t think of that. The thought of wasting a perfectly good night reading a murky old book makes my skin crawl.

“I’m gonna drive downtown later. You guys game?”

“You just want Cole’s car.”

I shrug. “Not only. I mean, I can take Dad’s.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“Not if he doesn't notice. If he gets drunk enough, he won’t.”

“I guess we can come with, but later, all right?”

“Yay!” I perk up. “I’ll see if I can get the others to come, too. We’ll make a night of it.”

After that thing the other day—when he held my hand in the water like he owned me—something changed between Peter and me. There’s a new tension between us, and I kinda want to touch his skin again to see if that electrical feeling is still there.

I hover close to him when we walk along Rodeo Drive, looking at people, peeking through store fronts to shops neither of us can even afford to even enter, gawking at Porsches and Lamborghinis. Stumbling into him by ‘accident’, my heart skips a beat. Hell yes, it’s there.

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