I don’t answer right away. The smarter move would probably be to say less, not more. But smart has not been my strongest instinct where Octavia is concerned.
“He told you I’m the reason she’s spiraling,” I say. “That I’m in her head, or dangerous, or taking advantage of her, or whatever version made him feel like the good guy in this.”
Cheyenne’s brows pull together. “He didn’t say all that.”
“No,” I scoff. “Probably not out loud.”
She goes quiet.
For a second neither of us speaks. The porch boards creak when she shifts her weight, still clutching the phone in one hand. Her nails tap once against the case, nervously.
“You punched him,” she says finally.
“Yes.”
The word doesn’t surprise her. That’s telling.
“And from the look on his face last night,” she adds, “I’m guessing it wasn’t just once.”
“No.”
She exhales through her nose. Not quite disbelief. More like irritation at having one suspicion confirmed while five new ones are forming behind it.
“You are making it really hard to believe you’re somehow the less chaotic option here.”
“That’s fair.”
The answer catches her again.
“What is wrong with you?” she asks. This time the question sounds less accusatory than genuinely baffled.
Plenty, I think.
Instead I say, “Enough that I know what men like him do when they feel humiliated.”
The words settle between us.
Cheyenne studies me more closely now. Some of the anger in her face has given way to scrutiny. She’s trying to decide whether I’m just posturing or whether I actually know what I’m talking about. More importantly, she’s trying to decide whether any of this has anything to do with Octavia beyond sex and bad judgment.
“What happened to her?” she asks.
That one cuts deeper than the rest because it sounds careful. Because it sounds like she’s asking not out of gossip, but out of fear.
My jaw tightens. “That’s hers to tell.”
“I’m her best friend.”
“And it’s still hers to tell.”
The answer comes out harder than I mean it to, but I don’t take it back. Cheyenne flinches slightly anyway, then squares herself again.
“She doesn’t tell me everything,” she says, almost to herself.
“No,” I say. “She doesn’t.”
That lands too.
The porch is very quiet now. Traffic somewhere down the street. A dog barking in the distance. The ordinary noises of morning moving around the fact that nothing about this feels ordinary.
