Chapter One
May 4, age 18
“What does your mom think we’re doing?” they asked intomy throat. The vibrations of their question-turned-kiss felt almost as good as whatever it was they were doing with their hands.
The exploratory nips, kisses, and strokes had built from cautious back rubs to daring brushes growing closer and closer to my ribs, my stomach, my breasts.Pop Hits of the ’80slooped on a CD player on my desk, resting below two same-sized posters of Legolas fromLord of the Ringsand Keira Knightley in full pirate garb. Honestly, my mother ever thinking I was straight seemed like a testament to her lack of observational skills.
Don Henley strummed into the room with “The Boys of Summer” as I answered.
I arched toward them, guiding their hand further south. “Praying,” I said through a moan. “WatchingVeggie Tales.Maybe that I’m proselytizing—” I was halfway through the word when my hips rolled off the bed.
I’d made out with boyfriends. I’d been felt up by Trevor in grade nine before panicking that God would send me to hell and ghosting him for the rest of my freshman year. But this sweet, sweet torture was the buildup of eighteen years of questions. My high, sharp intake of air matched the feather-soft brushes and decadent thrill I’d craved. Grazing just above my panties, pleasure buzzed through me, stealing all ofmy wiseass remarks.
It was happening.
Years of friendship. Months of stolen kisses under the bleachers, in the back of my car, even once in the bread section of the grocery store. It had culminated in a sleepover that had received surprisingly little pushback. I was caught between my eighteenth birthday and my high school graduation—old enough to smoke cigarettes and die for my country, but not yet old enough to skip calculus.
Kirby and I wouldn’t be going to the same college. We had no delusions of a relationship, of marriage, of houses, of children or love or forever. But together, we were safe, we were curious, and we were excellent kissers. I rubbed my legs together with little more control than a cricket desperately trying to make a sound, savoring my soaking need as I ached for another touch. More than the tentative movement over wet cotton fabric.
I pulled them close, drinking in their kisses, our tongues working in tandem as they cupped my face. I freed a hand to tug my panties down over my hips, kicking them off with a final flick, banishing them to the shadowy corner along with the unzipped backpacks, the empty bottles of soda, and the homework we weren’t doing.
“Are you sure?” Kirby asked.
I nodded eagerly. I was sure. The only sex I’d had was in my imagination, and I was ready to do something so much more than fantasize—particularly as guardian pirates and elves watched over me. Maybe it was a cliché to want to lose your virginity before leaving for college. Maybe we were playing with fire by doing it with our best friends and risking what it might do to the relationship. But Don Henley had a point as the second verse powered through the room: We never would forget the night.
I stifled the mingled cry of victory and want as we crossed the threshold. One finger at first, then two working in tandem. Continuous check-ins—Is this okay? Can I add another? Do youlike this?—until we tumbled into murmurs over how good it felt, how wet I was, how desperately they wanted to taste me. It was so deliciously hot right up until Kirby pulled up their hand and we realized in collective horror that it wasn’t pleasure that soaked the bed as their fingers dripped.
Blood.
Drenched in Eve’s curse for my first sexual encounter.
But it was Kirby, stained in crimson.
Something was wrong, wrong,wrong.
Past and present blurred into one, strung together by the common thread of far too much blood. Sweat prickled on my forehead as the ruby-red stain pulled me forward. That night had been the first and last time I’d wanted to see Kirby soaked in blood, but my hope had been a fool’s errand.
I wasn’t eighteen.
This wasn’t the summer before college.
I was in the middle of the veterinary hospital as a twenty-six-year-old woman, moments after being told that if I stood against the King of Heaven, my friends would pay the price, and my best friend was drenched in blood.
September 12, age 26
I’d taken a stand against their god—announced myself as the antichrist with intent to usher in the end of Heaven’s reign—and the clock was ticking.
The panic made it impossible to see. Everything was too bright. The colors were too vivid and muted all at once. I hated the hospital. I hated the fear that gripped me. I hated that I’d done this, that I was the reason Kirby’s life hung in the balance.
I stumbled in the hospital’s hallway, staring at the horrid crimson blossom—brown-black petals stemmed from the horrifying bloom across Kirby’s jade scrubs. People scowled and stared. Someone was shouting at me. Machines beeped their signs of life elsewhere in the hospital. But I could onlysee the carnage before me.
I shoved my way forward, ears ringing, pain squeezing my heart as it thundered in my chest. The horrid, cold overhead lights cast a nightmarish glare of sickness and trauma over the hall as I moved, not caring who or what stood between me and my friend. A frazzled woman dropped her clipboard, yelping as I narrowly avoided slamming into her. I rounded the desk and pumped my arms, sneakers slapping on the linoleum as I closed the space between us. I could see the whites of their eyes, the shock on their face.
I was too late. I was—
They started speaking a split second before I crashed into them. “Mar, what the hell? I was just pulled out of surgery by a call from Nia saying my dad wasdead. You sent the worst liar to tell the least believable bullshit. What is—”
It was worse than I thought. They didn’t even realize they were dying.
