Nadine Pascal-Said was sneaking in her bedroom window, the better to pretend she’d come home hours ago. She was not lucky enough to live in a house with a tree branch to the second story, but the tacky metal columns on the porch were perfect for climbing. The roof outside the window was littered with cigarette butts, and there was always a panic when it rained to clean them from the gutters. The room itself was almost a nest, piles of blankets and pillows and clothes both dirty and clean. She threw her shoes across the room to bury themselves in a nook that might have been a closet; she’d had to remove the impressive black platforms to climb to her room.
She had her own attached bathroom, and it was as much a mess as the rest of her space. She shuffled inside, standing on the hem of her pants as she took off her glasses and scrubbed the black makeup from her lips and eyes. It hurt more than usual, but too late to worry about that now. Her hoodie, full of burn holes, was discarded by the foot of her shower. No point showering just yet: the only people in this house with noses sharp enough to smell the smoke couldn’t talk. She put the thick-rimmed lenses back on to navigate out to the hall.
The second story of the house was essentially hers. She’d had to share it with the cats, for a while, but years of the prodigious application of a water pistol had taught them to stay away. She could tolerate wrinkles and the smell of smoke, but cat hair and piss was where she drew the line.
She came downstairs with heavy steps, which took effort when a person was as skinny as Nadine.
“Nadine? Is that you?”
“Yes, Gran.”
“When did you get home?”
“Same time as always.”
“It sounds like you’re wearing those horrible tent pants again.” Gran appeared from the living room, her cross-stitch set aside, and soft arms engulfed Nadine in a sturdy hug. Engulfed was the only possible word for it, Gran being taller and weighing as much as perhaps four or five Nadines. She was wearing one of her floral dresses, the one that looked like it had been made from a quilt. One of the ones, rather. Gran had skin the color of rich soil, and her black hair was stiff and straight and untouchable. She’d tried straightening Nadine’s hair, a few times, but the impatient girl had instead decided to chop off as many of her curls as she could stand. There was only an inch or two of them now, and they defied gravity, unstraightenable.
“Jesus!” Gran gasped, “What happened to your eye, girl?” Nadine grimaced, wishing today had been one of Gran’s napping days.
“We played dodgeball in gym today,” she lied, and it seemed a plausible enough explanation for the purple circle that trapped her eye in a squint.
“Did someone do this on purpose?” Gran demanded, bristling with righteous indignation.
“No, Gran,” she lied again, with an exasperated sigh. “I just wasn’t paying attention. Suzanne apologized a lot and she gave me her chocolate milk to make up for it.”
“You’re never paying attention,” the old woman scolded, releasing Nadine to rummage in the freezer. Her previous sympathy had been forgotten. “You get hurt more than your father ever did when he was twelve, and he gave me more trouble than I care to remember.” Nadine only grunted as Gran gave her a bag of frozen corn to place over her swollen eye. “Sit yourself down at the dinner table and I’ll get you something to eat. I swear, if your parents came home right now they’d think I was starving you.” Nadine grunted again, taking the chair with the legs carved to resemble paws – her favorite. Gran always took the chair with the cushion that looked like a daisy. “You must get that from Nadia, because I know my Marcel never looked that skinny.” Nadine did not even bother to grunt at this – she’d heard it enough that it was barely worth acknowledging.
“They’re probably going to call today,” Gran added.
“Keep me updated,” Nadine replied, same as always, even though they both knew there would be no phone call.
“How’s your French coming?” Gran asked, hopeful, as she began dumping leftovers into a pot.
“C’est merde.”
“No cursing in this house,” her grandmother admonished, “in any language.” Gran snorted in disgust, stirring the pot with a wooden spoon. “I bet that teacher’s still speaking English in the classroom. I tried to tell them that immersion was better than just learning word lists, but no one ever listens to me.” She glanced at her granddaughter, sitting slouched in her chair with a bag of corn on her face. “I’m going start teaching you myself,” Gran assured the girl, who tried to look enthused. “I didn’t get a dang master’s in linguistics so my granddaughter could only speak English.” Nadine thought that grandchildren had probably not factored in the decision at all, and refrained from mentioning Gran’s constant assertions that one could be a monolingual linguist. She seemed to really be hoping that Nadine would love language as much as she did.
“Want some tea?” she asked as she set the bowl of stew before the preteen.
“No thanks.”
“It’s good for you,” she coaxed, as if this was something that had ever worked on a child.
“I know.”
“What about some raspberry kombucha?”
Nadine hesitated briefly, considering a shrimp sitting in broth on her spoon. “Okay.” Each always felt they were winning a victory when Nadine had kombucha: Gran in the name of health, and Nadine in the name of drinking things that tasted vaguely alcoholic. Setting the glass bottle in front of her, Gran patted her hair affectionately.
“Now you eat as much as you want,” she urged the slender girl. “I’m gonna be in the living room with my boys. Come get me if you need anything.” Nadine never needed anything, but she nodded as she swallowed a piece of broccoli.
Nadine only ate one bowl, same as ever, leaving enough kombucha in the bottle to safely avoid the floating bits. It wasn’t a reflection on Gran’s cooking: Gran’s food was amazing even constituted into a soup, just the right amount of spicy and savory. Nadine just couldn’t eat much. The rest of the pot was being finished off by one of Gran’s boys, a cat with long white hair and a massive pair of testicles. She returned the corn to its place in the freezer.
“I’m gonna do my homework and go to bed,” she called into the living room, before bounding up the steps.
Checking the time, she scowled as she realized it was too early. If she’d actually gone to school today, she might have been tempted to do her homework. Instead, she flopped into what was probably her bed, digging a dirty magazine out from under her pillows.
She’d rather have a magazine full of naked men, she mused as she considered a frightening looking pair of fake tits. She didn’t have any friends she could steal those from, though. Nadine was still waiting to hit puberty, having not realized that her minimal hips and b-cups were as good as it was going to get. When she did realize it, years later, she’d wonder how she managed to be the only woman in her family that could still buy bras in stores. Tossing the magazine aside, she clambered over her mess to make it back to the bathroom, reapplying the black makeup she’d just washed off. While there was no point adding any to her swollen eye, a bit of rummaging found a sheet of gold star stickers, which she applied artistically to the purplish bruise. “Hard fucking core,” she grinned to herself in the mirror, putting her hoodie back on. Her glasses hid some of the stars, but that was okay.
Tossing her platforms into the yard, she followed them down, the sun just beginning to set. It was dark by the time she made it to the bowling alley, trudging along in her platforms and smoking. It was the parking lot behind it that was her destination, the gaggle of sixteen and seventeen year olds loitering by the ashtray. It was a long time yet before she’d come to realize that any older person who wanted to hang out with a twelve year old was the last person a twelve year old should hang out with. Sure, they told you not to in school, but they never explained why. That was the sort of lesson a girl had to learn on her own.
“Holy shit, Dean, what the fuck happened to your fucking face?” asked Smurf, the gangly teen with the blue mohawk. He was some kind of Native water elemental, if she remembered right, so he tried to be the bluest punk she’d ever seen. It seemed a bit like bragging.
“Fucking seriously, you look more fucked up than usual,” chimed in Hams, the chubby blonde who was not actually chubby enough to deserve his nickname. He could fly, but he looked stupid doing it, so he didn’t get much use from it.
“I was at the gas station trying to get that ginger kid to let me buy a pack,” she explained, flicking her lit cigarette at Hams, “when that fat fuck Jones offered to buy me a fruit pie or some shit because I was too fucking skinny for his liking.” She left out the part where he’d tried to corner her by the soda and touch her hair.
“What a fuckin’ pedo,” the scruffy and skinny-jeaned Slim Jim snorted. He was Filipino, the only other human in the group.
“I know, right? I told him everyone looked too fucking skinny when your ass is that fat.”
“So he fucking punched you right in the fucking station?” asked Mozz incredulously, the unspoken leader of the little group. Nadine had every intention of losing her virginity to Mozz someday, with his leather jacket and pompadour and tight white tank top. To say nothing of his tight blue jeans and pretty blue eyes. Since when could Asian kids be tall and built with blue eyes? He defied logic with his prettiness. He also had some kind of super-strong invulnerability powers, Superman style, but he mostly used them to steal from convenience stores without being stopped. No one complains to a guy who can punch your head off.
“Nah, I was heading outside because the smell was getting to me,” she smirked, pretending she hadn’t had to slip away and flee. “He followed me out and said I had a big fucking mouth and I should suck his dick with it.”
“Fuckin’ pedo,” Slim repeated.
“I told him I’d go right ahead if he could find it and I kicked him in the nuts, and that’s when he fucking punched me. My glasses’d be fucked if I didn’t take ’em off to get cigs.”
“He didn’t, like…” Smurf trailed off, looking faintly worried and uncomfortable.
“Naw,” Nadine assured him, “he grabbed me, but I set his shirt on fire with my lighter and booked it.” She left out the part where he’d grabbed her by the hair, where she’d been terrified and her voice shaky the entire time, where afterwards she’d hid in an alley and cried while her eye swelled and changed color. That part didn’t make for good storytelling.
“Fuckin’ pedo.”
“I’m amazed he didn’t go for your nose,” Mozz laughed, grabbing her by the offending beak and pulling her further into the group with it. “It’s pretty hard to miss.”
“My nose would break his fucking fist,” she sneered, and the gang of boys all laughed derisively.
“Maybe you’re just too irresistible with your glasses off,” Smurf suggested, snatching the glasses from her face. He tossed them to one of the others – she couldn’t tell who, without them – and she sighed with a roll of her eyes as they snickered. She didn’t bother trying to get them back – that’d just make the game of keep-away more fun.
“I still don’t think I’d want that on my dick,” Hams scoffed, and she flipped off the pale blonde blur.
“That’s because I’m not Mozz,” she retorted, and the other blurs laughed and punched him accordingly.
“Hey Dean!” Slim chimed in over the sound of a zipper, “can you tell what this is without your glasses?”
“A button mushroom,” she suggested flatly, “that somebody stepped on.” Slim zipped back up to laughter all around, and Mozz put her glasses back on her. She stuck her tongue out at him instead of looking grateful, but it backfired when he waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Did you ever get your cigarettes?” he asked, reaching into the pocket of his leather jacket.
“Nah,” she admitted, “I just threw my last one at Hams”
“That’s a fuckin’ waste,” he observed out half his mouth, the other half busy holding two cigarettes. He lit them both, then handed one to her, which she took nonchalantly. She was disappointed when it didn’t taste like him.
“We should kick that guy’s ass,” Smurf stated with a sage nod, always looking for an excuse to punch someone. Secretly she thought he might be jealous of her black eye, as if he no longer looked punk enough.
“Damn right you should,” Nadine agreed with a drag of her cigarette. Her eye was throbbing, and if it started to water she was going to die of embarrassment.
“No one fucks with our mascot,” Slim declared, ruffling her hair a bit too hard.
“Except for us,” pointed out Hams, but this only got him punched in the arm by Smurf.
“Jones is usually down at the Corner Pocket around now,” Mozz said thoughtfully, blowing smoke rings in the air. Nadine attempted to emulate him before pretending she’d meant to blow smoke blobs. “If we want to go defending Dean’s honor we can walk there in about fifteen minutes.”
“Or we could take your car,” Hams suggested, but now Mozz was the one punching his arm.
“You assholes don’t get to ride in my fucking baby,” he told them, referring to the cherry red ’57 Ford Thunderbird convertible that was his pride and joy. Nadine knew nothing about cars, but she’d learned everything there was to know about that car nonetheless. He began walking towards the pool hall, and everyone else followed without question, a line of cigarette cherries of varying heights in the darkness. When he stopped, everyone else stopped, surprising discipline from people with such poor posture.
“Can you walk in those fucking goth shoes?” Mozz asked Nadine suddenly, as if it hadn’t occurred to him until he heard the rubber soles scuffing the sidewalk. Her face turned slightly red in the dark; she liked to hide her shoes under wide-bottom pants with too many straps, in the hopes that everyone would forget she was short.
“I walked here, didn’t I?” she muttered defensively, ignoring that her feet felt raw. Nadine was good at pretending she wasn’t miserable.
Mozz scoffed, bending down on one knee. “Hop the fuck on, dumbass. Don’t need your short legs slowing us down anyway.”
“Hams has short legs, too,” she pointed out, even as she dropped her cigarette and nervously wrapped her arms around Mozz’s shoulders.
“Hams is flying like an inch off the ground because he thinks we won’t notice his fat ass can’t walk.”
“Fuck you!” He was, indeed, floating just above the sidewalk.
She restrained a girlish squeal as Mozz stood, her feet dangling off the ground. He took her ankles and wrapped her legs around his waist for added security, and she hoped he couldn’t feel her heart racing through his back.
“Dean!” he exclaimed with some surprise, “when did you get tits?”
“Fuck you!” The red tinge to her face was hidden in the dark, and she was trying to avoid touching his hair, not wanting pomade on her face.
“Dean got tits?” Smurf exclaimed excitedly, and she tried to turn and look at him to glare.
“We’ve had tits available this whole time?” Slim asked, sounding chagrined, and she couldn’t seem to turn and see him either.
“Obviously,” she snarled, “did you not notice Hams never wears a fuckin’ bra?” She heard Hams make a disgruntled yelp as presumably someone groped him. Mozz patted her leg reassuringly, and she tried not to think about the fact that he could feel her chest against his back as they headed towards the pool hall.
“So you haven’t figured out smoke rings yet?” he asked her quietly, and she hated that he’d noticed.
“I’ll figure it out eventually,” she mumbled.
“Smoke rings are easy,” he explained, a bit louder for the benefit of other members of the group who found them troublesome. “It’s just like sucking dick.” He blew a ring as if to punctuate his point.
Not only was this not helpful, it raised more questions than it answered. “You gay, Mozz?” Nadine asked finally, trying to quash the unhappy scream building inside her.
“Don’t have to be gay to know how to suck dick,” he replied cheerfully, and it spoke of the kids’ respect for him that no one questioned this. Nadine tried not the think of Mozz sucking dick, and failed as miserably as was possible.
There was silence for a moment after Mozz kicked in the door to the pool hall, the door collapsing into splinters. If Nadine hadn’t been wearing glasses, a few probably would have gotten into her eyes. Mozz wasn’t very good at thinking these sorts of things through. “Where’s Jones?” he asked, his voice booming in a manner too commanding for his seventeen years, and it hurt her ears slightly. It was a bit rhetorical, as they could see the fat forty-something sweating in the back of the room, clutching his pool cue.
“Who’s asking?” asked a bearded biker, stepping forward with his hands glowing a faint red. She looked to her sides in surprise as Smurf and Hams took their unofficial places: Smurf with swirling handfuls of water and eyes glowing blue, Hams floating in as intimidating a manner as he could manage. Slim came up beside Hams with a switchblade, not wanting to get left out. Mozz, meanwhile, kept his posture relaxed, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“We are, obviously,” he snorted, cigarette hanging off his lip. “Fuckin’ pedo gave a kid a black eye cuz she didn’t want to suck his dick.” He nodded towards Nadine, though because she was hanging off his back, this almost knocked his head into her nose.
“This true?” asked the leather clad man, the glow disappearing as he looked to Nadine. She nodded solemnly, making a show of clinging tighter to Mozz as though frightened. When he reached up to give one of her hands a gentle squeeze of solidarity, she found herself briefly breathless, her stomach twisting itself into knots. This crush was getting out of control.
There seemed to be no question that this was something Jones would do, and the crowd separated so that the biker who’d taken charge could escort the protesting man to the front. “You gonna kill him?” the biker asked before he let Jones go, watching Mozz carefully.
“Are we?” he asked, turning to Nadine, and she realized with some surprise that he was completely serious. She looked from Mozz to Jones, the pathetic shivering thing with sweat stains appearing under the arms of his t-shirt. A woman in leather took his pool cue away, lip curling in disgust.
“Just fuck him up,” she said decisively. Then she looked to the biker, hints of suspicion on her face. “Are his people gonna try and avenge him on us after?”
“We’re the closest to people he’s got,” the biker grumbled, shoving Jones in their direction. “He’s earned what he’s gettin’.” Mozz shrugged Nadine off of his back, and she felt a twinge of disappointment at not having him between her legs. He grabbed the blubbering Jones by the collar of his shirt, dragging him back out to the parking lot. Smurf helpfully put an arm around her shoulders to escort her outside, and she elbowed him in the ribs as he tried to cop a feel.
“It’s only fair,” he protested quietly into her ear, lest the bikers think them hypocrites. “You can touch my dick if you want.” She elbowed him again, harder this time, so he shoved her away and made a face.
“You can keep water outta people’s lungs, right, Smurf?” Mozz asked, holding their victim on his hands and knees by the back of his neck. It took him as little effort as holding a chihuahua by the collar.
“Shit yeah, I can. What are you thinkin’?”
“Shove some water in his face,” Mozz ordered, and Jones actually looked like he was crying. “Make him feel like he’s drowning. That shit’s supposed to suck.”
“One magical waterboarding, coming right up.” Nadine watched with detached fascination as Smurf wrapped a bubble of water around Jones’ head, like a reverse diver’s helmet. His eyes bulged and his mouth gasped open and shut like a fish, and it only dissipated to soak his shirt when he looked like the might pass out. He vomited, and the gang of delinquents universally expressed disgust as their victim collapsed on his back in his own mess, gasping and heaving.
“Couple more times, I think,” Mozz suggested easily, stroking his chin as if observing a work of art.
After the third time, Jones wheezing and soaked in a mixture of water and urine and vomit, Smurf whined, “Can I just punch this asshole now?”
“Go for it,” Mozz conceded, shoving his hands in his pockets to supervise. Smurf hit Jones with a deluge of water, cleaning the vomit and the piss from him before he’d lay his hands on him. Smurf began laying into him, Hams floating high enough to kick him in the head whenever he tried to fall to the pavement. Slim joined them now that there was plain old punching going on, and Nadine wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to show weakness and look away. Mozz sidled up next to her, lighting two cigarettes again and handing her one with an arm wrapped casually around her shoulder.
“Feelin’ better yet?” he asked, watching the beating like a show. There were wet noises and heavy thunks, Jones kept trying to vomit but he had nothing left. She tried not to feel bad for him, thinking instead of his sweaty sausage fingers yanking her curls away from her scalp as he tried to drag her who-knows-where.
“Kinda,” she lied, thinking it would have been more satisfying if this had happened right at the time, when she was still angry and hadn’t had time to compartmentalize. The smoke wasn’t much helping to suppress her nausea, and she blew it away from Mozz, an excuse to look away from the violence.
“Wanna help?” he asked, and she looked at him to see he was offering her a pair of brass knuckles. Why the fuck does a guy with super-strength have brass knuckles?
“Naw,” she answered coolly, “I’ll let y’all get your hands dirty.” Mozz snorted derisively as he pocketed the weapon. There was a sickening crack, and Nadine looked over to see that Jones’ nose had been smashed into his face, bleeding profusely. She had turned her head just in time to see Slim drive a fist into the man’s eye, letting it match Nadine’s.
“A’ight,” Mozz declared, removing his arm from Nadine, and the other’s stepped away to allow Jones to fall to the ground. “I’ll finish him off.”
She wondered briefly if he’d forgotten that she hadn’t wanted him dead, and she couldn’t help wincing when Mozz put out his cigarette on the fat man’s arm, the sizzle and the scream. “You’re not gonna wanna watch this, baby girl,” Slim warned.
“Yeah she is,” Mozz contradicted, giving Slim a dangerous look. “She needs to be able to handle this kind of shit.” So Nadine watched, tense and frozen, as suddenly and without warning Mozz ripped Jones’ right arm off. The screaming was deafening, blood everywhere, and Jones passed out in a pool of his own blood. Mozz threw the dismembered limb at Hams with a cocky grin, and Hams caught it with a horrified look on his face. “Bring that into the pool hall, they’re gonna wanna help this guy out in a hurry. They’ve probably got a healer.”
“You just make me do this cuz I’m white,” Hams accused petulantly, drifting closer to the establishment.
“Hell yeah we do, you honky-ass motherfucker,” Slim agreed cheerfully. “You wanna join Diversity Squad Alpha, get your fat ass a wheelchair.” He lit up a cigarette of his own, his knuckles bloody, then held out his hand to accept Smurf’s enthusiastic low-five. Hams chose to pretend nothing had happened as he carried the bloody arm away.
Nadine, normally thrilled by a chance to bully Hams, was busy staring blankly at the body staining the concrete red. She ought to have been more freaked out, more nauseated, more anything, but it was hard to accept it had actually just happened. That wasn’t real, what Mozz had just done, that was a finishing move from a video game. It was simply too absurd to be disturbed by.
“We should probably split up before the cops show up,” Mozz pointed out, blowing smoke rings again. Nadine again failed not to think of him with a dick in his mouth.
“You just don’t want us fucking your game up while you’re picking up cheerleaders,” Slim accused with a grin, though he and Smurf began walking off together. “You comin’, Dean?”
“I got Dean,” Mozz assured them, and walking backwards, the two boys simultaneously jammed their tongues between their first two fingers.
“Fuck you!” Nadine called after them, flipping them off and blushing despite herself. Everything was remarkably normal, for having a man with his arm ripped off lying in front of them. “Hey!” she yelped in surprise as Mozz suddenly picked her up with one arm, lifting her onto his shoulder so that her legs dangled over his back and her arms were draped over his chest. “The fuck is this?” she protested weakly, the air knocked out of her, but rather than admit that she took a drag from her cigarette as if this was normal.
“This is easier,” he explained shortly, taking long strides back to the bowling alley.
“This is bullshit,” she retorted, tempted to try putting her cigarette out on him. He probably wouldn’t even notice. Invulnerable asshole.
“You can live without me between your legs for a couple minutes, ya skank,” he mocked affectionately, and Nadine attempted to punch him in the ribs. “Don’t do that,” he scolded seriously, even as she tried to shake the pain away in the night air. “You’ll break your hand.”
“You’ll break your dick.”
“My dick will break you.”
“Stop being creepy!” she whined, flailing her legs in protest, feeling entirely too hot and tingly with goosebumps on her arms. He snatched her cigarette away from her, putting it out between his fingers and dropping it to the ground.
“You fuckin’ love it,” he asserted correctly, dropping her unceremoniously into the passenger seat of his convertible.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed in your car.”
“I’m making an exception.” He climbed in next to her, and she wondered how much self control it took not to leave fingerprints in the metal. She realized, as they pulled out of the parking lot with surprising caution, that he wasn’t driving towards her house.
“You’re not taking me home?” she asked casually, refusing to betray that her heart was beating against her ribs.
“I thought we could hang out without the douche squad,” he explained simply, shrugging his leather-clad shoulders.
“That’s cool,” she nodded, hoping she sounded indifferent instead of squeaky. She felt very small and very thin, and thoroughly inadequate with her gigantic pants and hoodie and short curly hair. The only way she could possibly cope with the fact that someone so absurdly handsome was paying attention to her was with heavy bravado, an unearned swagger and an air of aloofness. I know what’s going on, her posture said, I am a worldly and experienced twelve years of age. I drive around alone with manwhores who can rip arms off all the time.
“There’s some marshmallows under the seat if you want some,” he offered, all chivalry. She pulled the half-eaten bag out with some confusion before recalling the beach bonfire of last week.
“Thanks,” she said nervously, shoving one of the sugarbombs in her mouth and swallowing it.
“Did you even fucking chew?” Mozz asked after a moment’s silence, and Nadine turned to look out the side of the car, wind sliding through her hair and over her scalp.
“I eat fast,” she shrugged defensively, and she heard Mozz snort.
“It’s no wonder Jones asked you to suck his dick,” he scoffed as he took a turn towards the woods.
“The fuck?” Nadine’s head whipped around to stare at Mozz incredulously.
“You look like you’d be good at it, is all. You could blow some bigass smoke rings.”
“Fuck you,” she muttered, though she had a sneaking suspicion that he meant it as a compliment. Mozz just shrugged. The convertible pulled down a dirt road, into a clearing with the remains of innumerable drunken fires and a single old couch. The couch was probably moldy.
“We can smoke here,” he explained, and she let herself out of the car with an unseemly speed. Her companion lit two cigarettes in his mouth again, pulling a box of bottles and cans from the back of the car. “You want a beer, or some girly shit?”
“Beer,” she responded automatically.
“Fuckin’ stupid,” Mozz chided, and she refused to flinch despite her inclinations. He stepped around his car and stuck his spare cigarette in her mouth, handing her a can of something that looked like it was meant for old rednecks. “Should’ve said girly shit. Now you’ve got to pretend to like this garbage.” She was surprised to see him take a swig from a bottle full of something fluorescent red; at least, it looked red, in the light of the moon.
“I don’t have to pretend to like anything,” she insisted, cracking open the beer.
“You don’t have to,” Mozz agreed, staring up at the crescent moon, “but you will.” Nadine flipped him off, sipping at her beer and holding back the grimace that might otherwise have prevented itself.
“It tastes fine,” she lied, “you just like girly shit.”
“Yes I do,” he agreed, and he had Nadine at a loss once again.
“Why do we call you Mozz?” she asked finally, sipping daintily at her horrible beverage and chasing away the taste with smoke.
“Because my little brother can’t pronounce Fonzarelli. Says Mozzarelli instead. It’s cute as fuck.”
Nadine had never thought of Mozz as having a little brother. As having a family at all, for that matter. It was weird to think about.
Suddenly Mozz was bending down to kiss her, and Nadine thought she might have a heart attack.
He was probably trying really hard not to hurt her, she realized, since if he kissed her too hard he might snap her neck. The thought was more exhilarating than it ought to have been. He didn’t actually seem to be very good at what he was doing, his tongue flailing back and forth in her mouth like he was looking for his keys, but it was nonetheless the greatest fifteen seconds of her young life. He tasted like an ashtray mixed with the color red, and he smelled like a cheap cologne sample from a men’s magazine, and Nadine wanted to wrestle him to the ground and shove her tongue down his throat. It would never work, thanks to the super-strength, but she really wanted to try.
The Greaser thug looked thoughtful as he pulled away from her, considering his bottle. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”
“I’m twelve,” she said flatly, unable to think of another response. Mozz winced visibly.
“Fuck. I forgot. I thought you were fourteen or something.” Nadine looked down at herself, clearly puzzled by this statement. “I mean, it’s not – you don’t act twelve. You’re too old to be twelve.” Mozz massaged his temples with his thumbs, clearly feeling confused. “You’re sure you’re a virgin?”
“I’m twelve.”
“I don’t fuckin’ know!” Mozz exclaimed, throwing up his hands defensively. “Maybe you got molested or somethin’.”
Nadine made a face of puzzled disgust. “Yeah, Mozz, you got me, my grandma diddled me so it’s safe to stick your dick in me now. Real fuckin’ classy, asshole.”
“Shit.” Mozz sighed and took another swig of his strawberry something-or-other. “I forgot you don’t have parents.”
“I have parents,” she corrected, blowing smoke at him. “They’re just busy.”
“The fuck are they busy with that isn’t bein’ your parents?”
“Science. They’re scientists. They’re doing important research.” She sipped at her pisswater and didn’t look him in the eye.
“Right. Great. I’m not fucking a twelve year old. I’m gross, but I ain’t that gross.” Mozz started to blow another smoke ring before thinking better of it, blowing it towards the stars instead.
“I don’t think you’re gross,” Nadine protested, but he only sighed.
“Course you don’t. You’re a kid that wants to get laid. When you’re older, though, and you’re out of this shithole, you’re gonna look back and think why the fuck did I hang out with those nasty pieces of shit.”
“My birthday’s July 5th,” she offered, changing the subject.
“I’ll get you some discount fireworks.”
“Sweet. I’ll be thirteen. A teenager.” She was staring him down intently, green eyes locked with his blue ones.
“Fine,” he surrendered, “for your thirteenth birthday I’ll get you my dick. It’ll be fuckin’ magical. Maybe you’ll have bigger tits by then.”
Nadine grinned wide, tossing back her beer without a care in the world – there were better things to think about than the taste of it, right now. “I’ll have huge tits,” she declared, blowing smoke at the moon, content.
Nadine Pascal-Said 