Chapter 19

I knew Holly kissed me only because she was tired of hearing me blabber on and on about my sad childhood. At the same time, I was really happy she did. It was nice to reminded that even in a time like this, there were simple solutions to complicated problems. A kiss, a simple meeting of two lips, could chase the ghosts away.

Never did I imagine one of the happiest moments of my life would involve lying on the floor of a Walmart with Holly's arms around me. Her caramel hair, laced with strands of canary yellow, mingled with mine until I could hardly tell where she ended, and I began. Her hair seemed to bring color into my bleak world, to remind me of a time when the world was a place of parties and sunshine.

"I have a secret to tell you," Holly said. "It might take your mind off all this dark and depressing crap. Want to hear it?"

I nodded. Why not? Back in high school, it was all about gossiping about the quarterback and his chain-smoking cheerleader squad girlfriend. Now that we had graduated, it was about some billionaire's worthless spoiled children. The popular kids still ruled the world. Some things never change.

"Once Charles Liang's daughter, Angela, came to our store in Bal Harbour to replace some diamond earrings. She lost one skinny dipping in the ocean the day before. She came up to me because I guess she assumed because I look Chinese, I might speak a little mandarin."

"And you sold her the biggest, most disgusting diamond you had, right? One of those rocks that have a name? And you earned enough on commission to retire?"

"Yeah, something like that," Holly said. "She just wanted some steel studs. Weird right? The chick whose daddy owns all of Yagerin just wants some plain ass studs."

"Did she hit on you?"

"Nah, I wasn't her type. She never even looked at me twice. Those people, they float around in their own worlds. They never see people like us. We're just ants to them."

"Were you able to at least speak her to in Mandarin?"

"Girls with hair color like mine can't be expected to speak perfect mandarin," Holly said with a chuckle. "Then again, to be honest, if that's not bad enough, I've been made fun of for my English. The people in China they all learn to speak English by listening to tapes made in Britain or something."

"Figures."

"Yeah, I know. They're going around correcting my pronunciation because I don't have an English accent like they do. My Chinese customers always tell me I turn my Rs into As sometimes, like a native Brooklyner. They're not wrong, ya know. My first boyfriend was a transplant from Brooklyn. Was sent here to swampy Florida live with his grandparents after getting caught smoking weed."

"Is that when you realized you wanted to experiment with girls?"

"I get bored fast," Holly said. "Men are so simple. They just want to follow their ding-dongs everywhere. Women are more complicated. We give more of ourselves to our relationships. We love deeper, get hurt more. You won't hurt me, will you, Ailith?"

I shook my head. "Are you still talking about my dream? Ew, because there were no boys in it. I don't like boys. Until you kissed me, I was completely asexual. It was just school-home-study for me. The only people I hung out with were my family."

"I know, you're really sweet to your family," Holly said as she nuzzled my neck. "That's what I love about you. You would fight tooth and nail through all eighteen levels of hell for them."

Yeah, right, I thought to myself. I had no family left.

Holly lifted my chin and kissed me. Despite her gruff and bad-ass exterior, she was surprisingly shy and gentle in bed. I slid my finger between her legs and stroked her across the seams of her jeans. She stifled a moan as I applied more pressure to the spot just below where her zipper ended.

There was a certain self-satisfaction in knowing that as another girl, I knew exactly how to make her body answer the way I wanted it to. I knew my way around her most aching areas better than any loud-mouthed, penis wielding man.

Momentarily, as she gasped in pleasure — her hot, sweet breath enveloping my face, I wondered what my parents would think if they could see me now. Then, as I thought about the world burning to the ground around us, I didn't care.

I didn't want to waste my last minutes with some stupid boy who probably just saw me as a jabbering fleshlight. I wasn't some boy's conquest. I was the conqueror.

As I kissed Holly's warm, lush lips, I finally felt whole. Only another girl could love me for the real me, the aggressive, dominant, secret self that I hid deep inside.

"Even if we die tomorrow," I whispered to Holly as we laid there half-dressed with our limbs intertwined around each other. "I promise we'll spend the next three lifetimes together."

Holly laughed softly.

"Really? You believe that?"

"It seemed like the right thing to say considering how things are..."

"Maybe, Ailith, in our next lifetime we'll be a pair of dandy fuerdai in Singapore who wear haute couture and travel around the world in our yacht with custom Hermès Avalon couch cushions."

I chuckled. "Yeah, right. I don't want to be a guy. I can't even imagine it."

"My parents always say that I need to act more feminine to set an example for Jimmy for how a girl should act," Holly reflected as she laid her head down on the sheepskin rug beside me. "I can't imagine how screwed up he must be if he models normal female behavior on me. I don't know where I get it from. My mom is such a doormat. She just cooks and cleans and says, 'yes, sir' to my dad. Growing up, I hated her for it. Maybe that's why I hate men. In fifth grade, I dreamed of growing up to become a divorce lawyer."

"Maybe," I said. "My mom is nothing like that because my dad isn't even around much. I don't know why I'm the way I am. I can't imagine having a little brother. God knows I'll probably mess him up by making him cross-dress or something."

"Well, men are the ones who screwed up this planet of ours. Do you think if a woman were in charge, we would be caught in the middle of this Blight Rain? No, women are nice and good to nature. We think about our children first."

"Yeah," I agreed and laughed sadly. "I can't have children."

"Why? You don't want them?"

"No, the drugs they gave me screwed up my insides. The doctors say I probably should avoid doing that."

"Children are overrated anyway," Holly said and punched me in the arm. "They're annoying little suckers who leech the nutrients from your body during pregnancy and then leech the money from your bank account for the next eighteen years. Who wants them?"

"Yeah," I agreed and nodded in relief. "I hate them too. Can I say that without being called heartless?"

"Children are beyond useless during a vampire apocalypse, except if you throw them at the vampire to get away," Holly assured me. "Stop second-guessing yourself. You're perfect the way you are, Ailith."

She laid down on her back, and we both stared up at the ceiling with the stained tiles. The moldy holes that dotted the white plaster almost resembled stars in my imagination. Or mums. Sometimes, when I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the back of my arms against my eye sockets, I felt like I could see visions appear before my eyes. They were ghosts, wisps of flowing sleeves, brief glimpses of faces that I couldn't make sense of. It was another one of those crazy thoughts I couldn't tell my parents about, or they would send me to see the head-doctors again.

"Speaking of children," Holly continued in a weary voice. "I wonder what that chick Angela Liang is doing now that her old man is dead. Those rich kids, they can't find their ass with both hands without their parents."

"It must be hard knowing your dad killed himself because of what his greed did to the world."

"I heard a rumor it wasn't suicide," Holly whispered. "Jack and I chatted with some of the national guards on duty in Miami. They said he was murdered."

"Really?" I asked and cracked open an eye. "Who?"

"No one knows. They say it was telekinesis or something. Scary, isn't it? Someone is coming after the fat-cats who make the medicines to treat the Blight Rain. Maybe they never should have messed with nature."

"Maybe," I muttered. "Maybe it's just karma."