I unfolded the paper with two fingers.
Someone had printed a blurry old photo of Mandy from the newspaper archives. Her hair was wild around her shoulders, her smile bright and reckless, one boot planted on a motorcycle peg like the whole world was something she planned to take for a joyride.
Across the bottom, someone had written in pink marker:
WHO’S MANDY’S BABY DADDY?
Under that, in smaller letters:
ASK DESTINY. SHE PROBABLY HAS OPTIONS.
For a second, I couldn’t hear anything.
The fountain went silent.
The cafeteria noise thinned.
The desert sun pressed hot against the back of my neck, and all I could see was Mandy’s face.
My mother.
The ghost everyone knew better than me.
Sometimes I hated her so much I could taste it.
Not because she died. People died. Cars crashed. Bodies broke. The desert took people and gave nothing back.
I hated her because she left me with questions that had teeth.
I hated her because every room I entered had already met her first.
I hated her because men who loved me still looked haunted when my face caught the light a certain way.
I hated her because I had never gotten to ask why she wanted me, why she left me, why she thought naming me Destiny was anything but a curse wrapped in glitter.
My phone buzzed in my blazer pocket.
Regan.
Again.
She had been texting all morning.
You eat?
Then:
Your father is pretending not to hover. It’s pathetic.
Then:
Graduation meeting tonight. Don’t forget. Also Edge says no to the lake party. I told him to say it himself if he wants to die brave.
I stared at the printed picture.
The lake party.
That was what everyone called it, even though there wasn’t much lake involved. It was really a desert bonfire on private land outside town where the seniors went every year before graduation. Rich kids pretending to be wild. Beer in coolers. Trucks parked in a circle. Music too loud. Girls in denim and white boots. Boys in hats they hadn’t earned leaning against tailgates they hadn’t paid for.
