And that’s how Bonnie became her first friend in Kentucky.
Bonnie was loud and brash, with a temper as wild as her long auburn hair. She drove too fast, had a new dirtbag guy in love with her every week, and she seemed to absolutely loathe everyone in that town.
Everyone but Caela.
And that felt really good, to have someone actually want her around. Her mother certainly didn’t. Rob clearly wished she’d disappear. And they wouldn’t let Sam, the only one who actually liked her, spend more than five minutes with her. Her friends back in Ohio had already moved on without her.
But Bonnie was right there, insisting on occupying her time. No one had shown that kind of interest in her since the accident. And Caela wanted to hold on to that feeling as long as she could.
So when Bonnie told Caela she should do something, she usually did it.
“These earrings would look so good on you,” Bonnie said oneday while they were shopping at the local mall. They weren’t fancy or anything. Just two little dangling daggers.
“Oh, yeah. Those are cool,” Caela said. “But my mother would flip. She’d make it out like I was promoting violence or something.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I know. She’s kind of ridiculous.”
“I think you should take them, Cae.”
Caela shook her head. “I can’t afford to buy anything else today. Jennette’s in the shop, and this week’s paycheck is going entirely to pay for her to get fixed.”
“Yeah, notice I saidtakeand notbuy,” Bonnie said, voice lowered so none of the other shoppers could hear them.
“What?” Caela whispered. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Didn’t you tell me you used to go tagging buildings with your friends?”
“Yeah …” Even thinking about those memories of Grady and Eliza felt like a knife to the chest. “But that was different.”
“Not really. Your folks already treat you like a delinquent. Might as well have the fun of being one.” She plucked the earrings’ package off the display rack and pressed it into Caela’shand. “I’ll distract the cashier while you sneak out. The alarms here are, like, always broken, so it ain’t gonna be hard. I promise.”
She was staring at Caela, an eyebrow raised, waiting for a response. Caela’s heart thumped harder in her chest as she realized she was being tested. Bonnie was seeing if she was cool enough, worthy enough, to be her friend. And Caela was more scared of her disappointment than she was of the trouble stealing these cheap earrings might get her into.
So she did it.
Any regret or remorse she may have felt disappeared an hour later as they sat in Bonnie’s car outside of Ricci’s and Caela opened up the package.
“You wear one in your left ear, and I’ll wear the other in my right,” Bonnie said, taking one of the tiny daggers. “It’ll look sick.”
Caela unscrewed the back of the other earring, carefully putting it in her left lobe piercing. “How do I look?”
“Hot,” Bonnie said with a grin. She’d already put her earring in, too. “Now everyone will know—anyone messes with you, and they’ll have to deal with me.”
Caela beamed at her. Finally, she had someone who cared about her. Who wanted to defend and protect her. For the firsttime since moving here, things didn’t seem all that bad.
When she went home a little later, Rob’s glare and her mother’s declaration of disapproval stung just a little less.
They hated Bonnie, of course. They called her every name under the sun. Trash. Punk. Criminal. They told Caela she was a bad influence. They even expressly forbade her from spending time with her outside of work.
But Caela ignored them. After months of failed attempts, she was done trying to be the good girl they wanted. She’d done everything they’d asked and it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t made them love her. But now she had someone else to care about her.
So now she was Cae.
It was like Bonnie had said: They treated her like a delinquent even when she hadn’t done anything wrong. She might as well enjoy herself living up to their negative expectations. And what Caela enjoyed was having a friend.
She wore that little dagger earring every single day after that.
