Chapter Text
Half a year goes by. Nicky turns three, and the girls from work go in on one of those battery-powered cars shaped like the space shuttle; he spends the next few weeks roving around the apartment making what Jessica assumes are spaceship noises, and turns under the kitchen table into mission command. It means they watch nothing on television but documentaries on NASA, but Jessica doesn’t really mind. It’s educational and it’s fun, and who wouldn’t want to go to space and see the entire earth floating below, anyway.
One afternoon, Jessica is at work when she hears one of the girls spluttering at a customer. It’s been a long day, one of the flyers last week printed with an erroneous coupon and they’ve all been dealing with the fallout despite the plethora of signs and emails and everything else, but Jessica puts on her manager’s smile and heads out onto the floor.
It’s poor Tracy dealing with the irate customer, following beside her as she strides across the room, and Jessica meant to walk out to meet them but instead she stops, rooted to the floor as her brain clicks with recognition. It makes no sense, there’s absolutely no reason for this to be happening, but it’s the girl from the concert — the one on stage, the one all slinked up against Travis’ side with his hand at her hip — marching down the aisle with her eyes fixed on Jessica.
Jessica shakes herself free and stands with her hands open, inviting but not placating just yet. “Hi there, is there something I can do for you?”
“Are you her?” the woman spits out, but Jessica has enough experience dealing with vitriol that she doesn’t react. “Are you the bitch he’s obsessed with?”
Jessica looks to Tracy and gives her a tight smile. “Tracy, I’m going to take my break. I’ll be back in 15, call me if you need me.” She turns back to the girl and waves a hand toward the front of the store. “Take a walk with me?”
She narrows her eyes, thick-lined with black and smoky shadows, but then she turns and storms off. Jessica shrugs at Tracy and follows out past the exit into the rest of the mall. They stop across from the place that does eyebrow threading, and Jessica takes a deep breath and checks her work smile. “Is there a problem?” she asks. Her brain rustles around inside her head for the name, and finally Jessica finds it — Harvey, no, Harley.
Harley crosses her arms. “It is you. You know, you’re not so great. You’re not even that hot. There’s no reason to be hung up on you five years later.”
Jessica clasps one hand over the opposite wrist to stop herself from pinching her nose or possibly something more violent. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” she says, still calm.
“You’re Jess Madison,” Harley says. The name sounds like a curse in her mouth, and Jessica feels the muscles around her eyes tighten. “I looked you up on Facebook and I found your work through your LinkedIn. Travis had a thing for you in high school, and you were too much of a stuck-up bitch to realize how awesome he was. And now, by the way, he’s got his own band and he plays shows all over the country, which is way better than working at some stupid clothing store.”
She hadn’t noticed onstage, with the lights and the smoke and the ringing music, but here in the mall, standing in front of each other, Jessica would bet that Harley is a few years younger. It could just be the cadence or the force of her rage that makes her come off that way, the way she glares with no care as to who might see her or notice the display, but Jessi would almost take odds on it.
“I remember a Travis from high school,” Jessica says, choosing her words carefully. Stay neutral, try not to give any openings for attack. “He had a band, right? I’m glad he’s doing well, I’ve heard the music business is tough to get into.”
“He’s with me now,” the girl says. Harley straightens up when she says it, sticking out her chin, and all right, maybe it’s ridiculous, maybe Jessi is losing her mind after looking over the sales numbers too many times, but a stab of sympathy runs through her. Not that makes any sense, and Jessica is prepared to blame mother hormones but for a second all she wants to do is buy Harley a sandwich and give her a warmer sweater. Anything artistically slashed and held together with safety pins can’t actually be that warm. “And we’re very happy.”
“I’m glad,” Jessica says. Hopefully she sounds more sincere than baffled. Harley keeps staring at her, not a crack in her glare, and Jessica finally gives up. “Is there something wrong?”
It must not be punk to hide your feelings, because half a dozen flash across Harley’s face — defensiveness, anger, guilt, hesitation — as her eyes flicker, but finally she huffs a breath through her nose and plants her feet. “He doesn’t stop talking about you. Ever. I thought — he told me it just makes him appreciate me more, but it’s like he can’t get over it. We wrote a song about it together, and that was fun, but it now he sings it on the tour, and it’s going on the next album and —” She stops, snapping her mouth closed, and takes a step forward toward Jessica like she’s going to shove her before glancing over at the security guard patrolling the mall. “I just wanted to see you for myself, figure out what’s so great.”
Jessica pinches the bridge of her nose, before she catches the almost desperate wideness around Harley’s eyes. This time the sympathy hits again harder and lingers longer, and Jessica says the words before her brain catches up. “I get off work at 8. If you come by after my shift, we can go out for coffee or something.”
Harley jerks back. “Why?”
Why indeed. The last thing Jessica wants after a long day is to spend time with a girl hell-bent on spitting in her face, but apparently she’s lost her mind and may as well own it. “Because it looks like you need someone to talk to,” Jessica says, less resignation in her voice than she’d thought there might be. “And… I know what that feels like.”
The pause stretches on past several heartbeats, but finally Harley swallows and draws her arms in tighter across her chest. “Fine,” she says. “But nowhere that serves skinny lattes or any of that white girl shit.”
Thankful for the retail experience that lets her keep her expression pleasant, Jessica only nods. “You can choose the place. Meet me outside the north entrance around 8:15.”
Harley gives her one last suspicious look, then jerks her head in a nod and walks away with a round-shouldered slouch that makes Jessica wince, remembering her mother and the sharp-knuckled jabs her posture used to earn her. Jessica watches for a moment to make sure she’s not going to double back and cause any more grief, then shakes her head and slips back into the store.
“So,” Jessica says. They’re at a pub, no lattes in sight as promised, though Jessi earned herself a scornful lip curl from Harley for only ordering a glass of seltzer water with a shot of grenadine. Harley ordered something with “dirty” in the name that Jessica will bet tastes foul for the sake of it, and Jessi prudently didn’t comment. “Tell me about you and Travis.”
Harley stares down at her drink for a few seconds, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. For a moment her expression clears, her eyes going faraway, and without the scowl she almost looks pleasant, like a girl of twenty and not and a giant walking ball of rage shaped like a person. “I met him at a concert, a couple of years ago before he made it big, so it’s not like I’m a poseur or anything. I’ve been with him since the beginning. He was mostly playing garages and warehouse parties, maybe a shitty club if he got lucky. And we just — connected.”
She catches Jessi’s gaze and draws back, eyebrows coming together in a defensive glare that Jessica makes sure not to react to. “He’s really talented, okay, and he’s got a great soul. People like you never look for that sort of thing, it’s just is he hot or does he drive the right car or whatever else. I knew girls like you in high school. You’d make my life hell and never look twice at someone like Travis.”
Jessica isn’t going to argue. She never tormented anyone on purpose — or, at least, she thinks she didn’t; heaven knows Mom never thinks she’s saying anything that hurts and would scream if told otherwise — but she didn’t exactly tell her friends to stop when they did, either. If the last few years have taught Jessica anything, it’s that intention doesn’t mean anything when the outcome is the same. “There are lots of reasons why people were idiots in high school,” Jessica says. It’s sort of a copout answer, and the tight lines of Harley’s face say that she agrees, but it isn’t as though Jessica can apologize for the way people treated Harley in high school and have it mean anything.
Still, the memory of Travis gripping her arm sticks in her mind; Jessica felt the pressure of his fingers long after the bruises faded from her skin, and she pushes back a shudder. “Did — Travis, is he good to you?”
“Yes,” Harley says immediately. If Jessica were playing armchair shrink she’d say it happened too fast, but she’s still a student and her major is child psychology, not angry post-adolescent punk. “He is, it’s great, we’re great. Everything is great, except you.”
Jessica takes another sip of her drink, enjoying the almost cloying sweetness. She imagines giving Nicky a sip, the way his eyes would bug out wide before he demanded more and pouted when she said no. “I don’t know what to say about that,” she says finally, carefully. “It’s — we weren’t together, we were never together. He asked me out, I said no, he got angry, we never talked to each other again. He probably told you that much.” Harley nods, eyebrows still furrowed. “That’s all there is.”
“Five years,” Harley says in a flat voice. “Five years and he still talks about you. He wrote that song, and he likes to play this game where we guess where you are and what you’re doing — he looks at your Facebook profile even though he won’t add you, and he said he stopped but I borrowed his phone and you were in the recent searches, again, and —“ She grips the edge of the table hard enough that her fingers mottle pink and white. “You’re not that pretty. You look like every other rich bitch whose daddy bought her a convertible, and he didn’t even date you! So why?”
A flash of anger hits Jessica hard at the mention of her imaginary father, but no, no she won’t get into that. It’s not anyone’s business but hers, and Jessi certainly spent enough time as a teenager cultivating that sort of image anyway. Not too many people knew the truth, and she liked it that way. Jessica taps one finger against the tabletop. “Maybe because he never dated me?” Jessica suggests. It’s a safe enough guess, at least. “If we’d dated and broken up, there’d be nothing left to wonder about. But we didn’t, and I hurt his feelings, so —” She waves her hand. “Hard to get over something if you don’t have closure.”
Harley’s lips press thin, and she leans back in the booth and curls in, shoulders hunching forward. Jessica could leave it at that, she’s indulged this girl’s curiosity and given her a glimpse into her personal life that she definitely did not have to do, but something pulls her back. It’s not vulnerability, exactly, not with the makeup splashed like war paint across her face and the scowl like a mask, but maybe it is. Maybe it’s the jut of Harley’s collarbones above her shirt, or the way the edges of her nail polish have peeled away along with the skin from too much picking. Maybe it’s none of those things, and Jessi is an idiot.
Jessica picks up her drink to give herself something to do with her hands, and she looks away out at the rest of the patrons to avoid getting too intense with her eye contact. “I’m sorry I’ve made things a problem for you,” she says. “But… it sounds like you could do better than a boyfriend who talks about another girl all the time.”
Harley hisses. “You don’t know anything,” she snaps. “The problem isn’t Travis, it’s you! All I have to do is go home and tell him you work at some shitty department store folding shitty clothes and he’ll forget all about you and come back to me. He thinks you’re so great, but you’ve got a lame, shitty life and I’m going to tell him that.”
Jessica stands up so fast she barks her knee off the underside of the table, though it’s too heavy to go skittering. Her heart hammers, pulse pounding in her chest and in her temple, and Harley stares up at her, eyes wide. “You can tell him,” Jessica says slowly, feeling the rage roll over her like the surf at her feet, “whatever you want, if it will make you feel better. If you really want to him to have a laugh and get over me, you can even tell him that I have a baby, and oh look, no ring.” She waves her hand for Harley to see, though it ends up curled into a fist without her meaning to. “Tell him I haven’t spoken to my mother in years because she’s furious I didn’t have an abortion. Tell him whatever, I don’t care. But I’m going to tell you something, too. You need to grow up and realize you’re dating somebody who treats you like garbage. The problem isn’t that he’s obsessed with me and needs to know I’m not worth his nostalgia. The problem is he’s obsessed with anyone who isn’t his girlfriend, and that’s not going to stop with me. And if you’re okay with that, then fine, but it’s not my problem and I’m not going to be a punching bag so you can feel better about your relationship. Okay? Okay.”
It’s the most Jessica has said in one go in a long time, and the first time in years she actually let the anger take her. She doesn’t wait for Harley’s response, doesn’t wait for whatever expression will cross her face once the shock fades; instead Jessica grabs her jacket from the hanger at the side of the booth and heads out without looking back.
“Mama looks angry,” Nicky says to her the next morning, when they’re cuddling on the couch watching morning television. Jessica looks down at him, surprised, and he pokes her between the eyes, then once in each eyebrow. “Caterpillar!”
Jessica laughs; her brows are almost touching, and now that Nicky pointed it out, her jaw does ache from clenching. “Mama had a long day yesterday,” she says, bending to kiss his hair. “I’m okay now. I like it here with you.”
“Hm,” Nicky says, frowning, then he squirms and slides off the couch onto the floor. “Doctor Nicky will help Mama feel better.”
Well, she certainly isn’t going to argue with that. Jessica tucks her feet up underneath her as Nicky roots in his toy box for his doctor kit, and she dutifully rolls up her sleeve when he comes back with a large, multicoloured toy syringe. Doctor Nicky’s diagnosis involves a prescription of cookies and watching nature documentaries — Jessica likes the ones on the ocean, there’s a certain calmness when the camera swoops underwater and the sounds muffle — and so she scoops him up and carries him to the kitchen to make good on the first part.
“Doctor needs cookies too,” Nicky says, very seriously, and Jessica laughs.
“Of course he does,” Jessi says, booping him on the nose. “Thank you for being such a good doctor.”
A week or so later, Jessi heads out the side exit from the mall and nearly runs right into Harley. She’s leaning against the side of the building, the same safety-pinned sweater and makeup and crossed arms, and Jessica exhales through her teeth. “I don’t have time for this,” she says. “I have to get home.”
Harley doesn’t move, doesn’t look at her, and Jessica is about to continue past her to the bus stop when she speaks. “I didn’t tell him,” she says. The words come out in a rush, and Jessi folds her arms. “I — was going to, but I thought he would laugh. It’s part of the song, you getting knocked up, and I know he’d find it hilarious. I was going to tell him.” Her fingers tighten on her arms, wrinkling the fabric of her sweater. “But then I didn’t.”
Jessica waits for more, but that’s apparently it. “Well, thank you,” she says dryly. “I appreciate it, really. But I have to get home.”
She goes to move past, but Harley catches her arm. Jessica jerks away, too many memories of unwanted touches blaring through her mind, and Harley doesn’t try to grab her again. “What did you mean, he’s treating me like garbage?”
Oh, boy. Jessica didn’t ask for this. All she wanted was to go to work and come home to Nicky and not worry about babysitting the girlfriend of a guy who used to watch her at high school and then wrote a nasty song because she wouldn’t go out with him. Jessica opens her mouth to tell Harley to go to hell, she doesn’t owe her anything, but apparently it’s a sickness or something because instead she says, “I’m supposed to get Nicky in half an hour, and I can’t stay late today because my sitter has plans. If you want to talk you’ll have to come with me.”
Harley’s eyes flicker. They’re rimmed with deep purple this time, and she bites her lip. “This isn’t some weird plan to stab me and serve me as soup at your next housewife party, is it?”
Jessica mentally whispers a prayer for patience. “No,” she says. “My bus is leaving in five minutes, and then I’ll have to wait an extra half an hour or call a cab. Come if you’re coming.”
She heads for the bus stop, and after a moment Harley’s footsteps follow her, scuffing against the concrete. Jessica doesn’t offer to start the conversation; not while she’s still in her work clothes, agitated and eager to be home and kick off her shoes and scoop up Nicky for a kiss. She’s agreed to talk to Harley in what is likely to be a very infuriating conversation, but she won’t do it while waiting for the bus. It probably won’t make a difference, but Jessica wants Harley to see her life, see what she’s built for herself. The furious outburst from the week before, framing it in a way that might make Travis get over his ridiculous ancient crush, that isn’t how Jessi lives.
It’s not that she needs a random girl’s approval, but Jessica would rather not have her scorn or condemnation, either. at least not without seeing the full picture.
They don’t talk on the bus, either, and Harley is content not to make small-talk. She follows when Jessica exits the bus and takes the side street to her apartment, and she’ll have to be sizing up the place, making judgments in her head, but Jessica can’t let that paralyze her. She’s lived this long, brushing off people’s snap assessments of her; she might be inviting this one in, but that doesn’t mean she has to be a slave to the results.
Nicky runs to the door when Jessica opens it, as always, hitting her hard at the knees and wrapping his arms around her calves. “Oof!” Jessica says, laughing, and she reaches down to ruffle his hair. “Mama needs to get inside, peanut, how about you let me in?”
Nicky peers around her legs and catches sight of Harley, and he backs up a few steps to give them space. “Mama, who that?”
“You go say goodbye to Mrs. Carlisle while Mama gets her coat off,” Jessica says. “We’ll talk in a minute.”
She turns to Harley, who’s eyeing the place with the same wide-eyed stare she gave Jessica when she snapped at her. Maybe it’s the stink of suburbia and motherhood that hangs on the apartment, Jessica thinks uncharitably, even though she lives downtown. Maybe it’s the drawings along the bottom three feet of the walls; she lines them with mural paper and lets Nicky draw on them, replacing with a new fresh sheet once one gets filled.
“You can leave your boots there,” Jessica says. She kicks off her own, lining them up on the mat with enough room for Harley’s toe-stompers, and hangs up her coat in the closet. Harley keeps her sweater, and she hangs awkwardly by the door while Jessica says goodbye to Mrs. Carlisle.
“Your house makes me feel like you’re going to offer me cookies or something and creep me out,” Harley says after Mrs. Carlisle leaves. She keeps eyeing the walls as though a fifties-print dress is going to materialize and try to force her to wear it.
“I did make cookies last week,” Jessica says mildly, enjoying Harley’s grimace maybe a little too much. “But I won’t offer you any if that would freak you out.” Harley sputters a little and Jessica ignores her, still pleased with herself even if that’s not exactly nice.
Nicky toddles back over to them, each footfall landing with a child’s determination until he stands in front of them. “Mama, who that?” he asks again, and this time he won’t be swayed. “I like your makeup! Sometimes, sometimes me and Mama play Beauty Parlour. I make Mama’s makeup. Can I do makeup?”
Harley slinks back out of reach as though faced with a rabid dog, and Jessica takes pity. “This is Harley,” she says, and doesn’t add a pleasant lie like ‘Mama’s friend’ that might seem to explain the situation but really would launch a whole bevy of toddler questions. “She’s not here to play, though, she’s here to talk with Mama. Can you play by yourself for a while?”
“Aw,” Nicky says, pulling a pout, but it’s all for show. He takes a few of his toys and disappears into his room, and Jessica will keep an ear out for trouble but he’s always happy to have quiet time on his own.
Jessica takes the end of the couch where she can still see into Nicky’s room, and waves Harley down onto the other. The dull ache at her temples suggests her post-work coffee is overdue, but Jessi has been trying to wean herself off, and she doesn’t really want to launch into hostess mode. It doesn’t come naturally to her, no matter what Harley thinks, and the whole point of this conversation is to be honest, right?
Judging by their conversation at the pub, Harley isn’t going to be the one to start, and so Jessica tucks her feet under her and curls one hand around her ankle. “Is Travis your first boyfriend?” she asks. May as well start right out of the gate.
“No!” Harley says. “No, I dated in high school, thanks, I wasn’t a loser. And I had girlfriends, too.” She says that with a certain pointed accusation, as though the idea of two girls together is a javelin that, once hurled, will stab Jessica through the heart and kill her.
Jessica decides not to react to that one. She’s had a few thoughts about that herself, over the years, but she only ever dated Scott through high school and it seems a bit of a cliche to get turned off men after a few bad experiences — or something. She’s not really sure, but this is not a conversation she’s going to have with Harley, anyway.
Times like this she misses Michelle and her startling frankness, but those days are long behind her.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Jessica says, and that plus her lack of visible reaction smoothes some of Harley’s ruffled feathers. “I only asked because first relationships can be — intense.”
“It’s intense because it’s real,” Harley says, but Jessica recognizes an automatic justification when she hears one. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“You never have,” Jessica says. “Not you-you, general people you.” She reaches up and pulls the hair tie from her braid, untwisting the strands and combing her fingers through. Harley watches her, still angled away with her posture ratcheted tight, and Jessica can’t exactly blame her. The last time they spoke Jessica shouted at her and stormed out; based on Harley’s levels of apparent paranoia, it’s likely she’s expecting Jessi to have brought her home to chop her up and hide her in the walls. “I mean, it always feels like that. It’s not always a good thing, that’s all.”
“He doesn’t hit me or anything.” Harley goes to cross her arms, then stops herself and fists her hands on her knees instead. “It’s — this is stupid. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“I never said he hit you,” Jessica says gently. “But I also know that if the first thing that comes to mind is ‘he doesn’t hit me’, then that’s not usually a good sign.”
Harley swallows, and she pulls her knees up to her chest. “It is good, okay, it’s great. I just — he’s always comparing me to you. And it’s good, because he keeps telling me I’m better than you, I’m hotter and I’m smarter and I understand music and all this stuff, and I liked it. But I — I started wondering if he just says it because you wouldn’t fuck him and I did.” Her face hardens, the line of her jaw standing out as she grits her teeth. “I want him to stop telling me how much better I am than you and just tell me how much he likes me.”
Self-realization is a tricky path, and one easily derailed by too-eager advice. Instead of offering her immediate perspective, Jessica waits while Harley sits, quietly seething, and watches the thoughts run behind her eyes.
“He does make me feel good,” Harley says. She pushes a hand through her hair, tugging at the ends. “But it’s not about me. I mean, he’s talking to me, but it’s not about me. It could be about anyone who’s not you.” She catches herself playing with her hair and drops her hand, giving Jessi a glare. “This is your fault. You got in my head, made me think all of this.”
Catalysts don’t start fires unless there’s something to burn, but Jessica isn’t going to say that. “You should talk to him,” she says instead. “There’s only so much you can fix on a stranger’s couch, and you are right. Too much thinking can make you crazy, especially by yourself. Do you have any girlfriends you can talk to?”
She thinks she knows the answer to that one, and sure enough Harley shakes her head. “Not really. I’ve always gotten along better with guys than girls. I guess I’m just not into drama.”
“It’s not a bad idea to have some,” Jessica says. “If you only hang out with him and his friends, you’re only going to hear what they think. That might not be helpful.”
“He likes that I don’t have friends of my own,” Harley says slowly, and she might have shown up and insulted Jessica to her face, and Jessi might have absolutely no obligation to help her, but that sends a chill through her blood. “He says it’s cool that I like hanging out with him and the band and don’t care about shopping or chick flicks or whatever, and that girl friends would only make me want to bitch about him behind his back.”
(“Do you really need to go out with your friends tonight, baby? We could stay in and have a lot more fun just the two of us …”)
Jessica sucks in a breath so hard it startles Harley, who narrows her eyes and leans back. Jessi bites hard on her tongue to bring herself back and runs a hand up and down her arm, trying to rub away the sudden rise of goosebumps. “You should definitely talk to him, and pay attention to what he says. Maybe he really just doesn’t know, and he’ll be horrified and want to make it up to you. But.” This time it’s her mother’s voice whispering in her memories, the tone dismissive and accusatory all at once. “Remember that ‘I’m sorry’ is a complete sentence. If anything else comes after that — anything that’s not how he’s going to do better — then he doesn’t mean it.”
That makes Harley pause, and she gives Jessica a long sideways look as her fingers twist in the fabric of her pants. “But maybe he’ll just want to explain —”
“‘I’m sorry’ is a complete sentence,” Jessica says, repeating it slowly and with emphasis on every word. “There are no exceptions. If he tries to argue or tell you you’re wrong, it doesn’t matter even if it makes sense. Your feelings are your feelings. Nobody has the right to tell you they’re not, and you don’t have to be able to write an essay about it for you to be allowed to feel them.”
“Shit,” Harley mutters under her breath, and she’s gone even paler under the makeup.
Jessica sighs and stands up. The ants are back under her skin, and she needs to do something, anything, or she’ll vibrate apart right there on the sofa. “I’m going to make myself dinner,” she says lightly. “You can stay if you want.”
Harley startles. “No,” she says, jumping to her feet. “No, I’m — I’m gonna go.”
She doesn’t say anything else, and Jessica doesn’t push her. Jessi lets Harley flee for the door, waits while she shoves her feet into the ridiculous metal-studded boots and slams the door behind her, then goes to find Nicky.
He’s on the floor in a pile of stuffed animals, apparently organizing them into ranks for another battle. “Hi Mama,” Nicky says, smiling up at her. “Mama’s friend go home?”
“Mama’s friend went home,” Jessica confirms, and she lowers herself into a crouch. “You want to help me make dinner?” Mrs. Carlisle will have fed Nicky earlier, but he likes to help Jessica cook even if he doesn’t eat it.
“Yeah!” Nicky grins and scrambles to his feet, and Jessica holds out her hand.
Two days later the front buzzer startles Jessica out of her studying, her phone vibrating as it sits balanced across the crease of her open textbook. She hits the answer button, then stares at it as Harley’s voice, crackly from the intercom, makes it through the speaker. “It’s me.” Jessica waits for anything else, but nothing follows except the tinny sound of traffic in the background.
Jessica tilts her head back and sends a silent plea to the ceiling, but hits the button to open the door. “Nicky, Harley’s here again,” she calls, and he looks up from his game with interest. “She might not want to talk very much, okay, so let Mama say hi first.”
“Okay,” he says, and gleefully crashes a stuffed tyrannosaurus into his carefully-designed train complex.
Harley’s in the hall when Jessica opens the door, makeup smeared below her reddened eyes, a battered rucksack over one shoulder. “Hey,” she says, not meeting Jessi’s eyes. “He said — you know what, it doesn’t matter. You were right, and it’s done. And you were right about the other thing, I don’t have any friends and all his bandmates want to fuck me and —”
Jessica steps back and waves a hand. “Come on in,” she says. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
Nicky waves from his spot on the floor. “Want to play trains?” he asks hopefully. “You can be the dinosaur.” He mimes the T-rex devouring one of the train cars as a helpful demonstration, adding in the screams of the people inside.
Harley lets out an odd, choked sound, and she digs the heel of one hand into her eye socket before twisting her fingers up into her hair. “Yeah, sure,” she says, dropping her bag. “Why not.”
Jessica watches for a moment just to be sure, but Harley plops herself down and takes the dinosaur without comment, and Nicky beams at her and starts rebuilding the train. When he catches Jessica’s eye he puts a finger over his lips, miming his promise not to talk too much, then goes back to the game.
Jessica shakes her head, a baffled smile touching her lips, but there have been stranger happenstances in the universe, probably. She passes by them into the kitchen to put some water on to boil just as Nicky makes Harley laugh.