"I want to take you on the best date of your life."

Chapter 3: "Sliced of Life"

It wasn't until I woke up the next morning that it sank in for me. An unkempt face stared blearily at me from the other side of the mirror. The knot in my abdomen was both physical and emotional. I wasn't second guessing it, but I had to admit that I didn't think Kat's offer through. What it would mean to accept it. I didn't have a necessarily bad reputation among the rest of our class, but they definitely thought of me a very specific way. It would probably come as a shock for them to find out that I'm actually a full blown lesbo. Or wait, no, I'd be bi.

Wait. What if they already knew? Kat thought it was obvious. Have I been the only one unaware? Not that being gay was bad or anything. Kat was pretty. Very pretty. And she'd asked me out. And I'd said yes.

And I definitely wasn't second guessing it.

I jumped when my dad rapped his knuckles on the bathroom door.

"Cassidy? You about done in there?" My eyes darted to the kitschy wall clock above me, the fault of my mother's bad taste. Ugh. I'd gotten up later than I meant to. "I've gotta be downtown in thirty minutes, hon." I flushed the empty toilet and rinsed my hands in the sink.

"Sorry, dad." I brushed past him and went down the hall to my room.

"Cassie?" he said softly. I paused and looked over my shoulder. He furrowed his massive brow. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I swatted his words away as if they were a swarm of bees. "I just slept really hard." His brow didn't fall back, making me think he didn't believe me. I **** my eyes open a few more centimeters, as if that would convince him. "Really, dad."

"You know you can tell me anything you need to, right?" I practically mouthed the words along with him, predictable as ever. Sigh. That's reductive. He wasn't predictable. He was reliable. I could count on him.

"Yeah, I know." I looked him in the eye as he nodded at me.

"Okay, baby." He turned away, the conversation over as far as he was concerned. I opened my mouth-

The doorbell rang below us. "Who the hell?" my dad wondered aloud. He wandered towards the stairs. I closed my mouth. The moment had passed. I turned back to my bedroom door, stepping inside and closing it behind me.

Mom had gotten a bug about redecorating the house last year. It was the middle of winter. Dad wasn't easy to wear down, but mom was persistent. She wanted to paint the bedrooms, and that was that. She said it was seasonal depression or whatever. My dad said she was giving him seasonal depression.

They chose a sunflower yellow for their room. My mom discovered textured brushes at the hardware store and went nuts. She had my dad working overtime. The picture in my mind was hilarious: a gruff old man reading a book in bed, squeezed into a puffy jacket because my mom had opened the windows in 40 degree weather to help the walls dry. I could see his breath whenever he let out a frustrated sigh. The smell stuck in our house for weeks.

The walls of my bedroom were still painted pink, barely faded from my eastern facing windows. I put up band posters and movie stuff. Mostly Kat's recommendations. My tastes were too broad to settle on anything for too long, but Kat liked to keep things on repeat. There wasn't a single time I'd come over to her house when she didn't have a DVD set to repeat on the dingy little monitor she hung from her bookshelf. It was always something avant garde. Some german film about kids ripping off rich people, or a monster movie where the indie studio ran out of budget by the time it came to show the monster. I spent enough time around that her favorites became our favorites.

I jabbed my hand into a dresser drawer, grabbing fresh underwear and socks. I didn't have time for a shower, so getting freshly dressed would have to do. I found a pair of black bike shorts in my closet and pulled a navy blue dress off its hanger.

I didn't usually do makeup, but I had gotten something new at the mall yesterday that I wanted to try before our date tonight. There went my stomach again. The D word. There was a different D word floating around in my head, and I shoved that one back into the box it belonged. Kat was my closest friend. We knew things about each other that our parents didn't. We spent most of our time together anyway. How was this any different? Maybe we'd hold hands or something. Her soft hands...

My dad rapped at the door just as I was finishing my face. He noticed that he'd startled me, his mouth pulled downward in an apologetic grimace.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt." He struggled for a moment, and I waited for him to organize his thoughts. "Uh, I don't really know how to say this. But there's a woman outside, asking to see you?" It was my turn to furrow my brow. I stood up, looking out my window down into the driveway that led to the rest of Texan suburbia. I couldn't see her from here, she must have been right at the door. I could barely make out the trail of a silk scarf floating in the breeze, but the figure it was attached to was just beyond the angle of my window.

"Well, she's asking about a girl your age. I don't think you're who she's looking for." He lowered his voice as if he were telling a secret. "I've got your mother running interference for the moment, I just wanted to get you in front of her so we could let her know."

"Weird." I nodded to him. "Yeah, I'll be right down." I stuffed my brushes and blenders into a top drawer and straightened out my hair, reaching into my top and adjusting my cleavage. As I made my way down the steps, I started to hear the woman's voice faintly.

"...in the garden. I really think that she needs to watch where she could be going, because the vines aren't willing to pick sides. Nevertheless, it's important that she hears from a strong mother figure about this." My mother was standing ahead of my father, barricading the door with her body.

"Well, don't you worry," she said, her southern showing. "That's what she's got me for." The woman sounded confused and dismissive."

"I'm not sure that's going to be enough. Truly the way her feet move has to be the opposite..." I didn't hear more after my mother decided to interrupt.

"She's perfectly fine, I assure you, ma'am." The dagger was still sheathed, but she wasn't afraid to show that the blade was ready to be drawn at any time. She had her quirks, but she was a momma bear if you got in her way. I stepped forward, and the woman came into view. She was disheveled, but I could swear her skin was so clean it glowed. Her teeth were immaculate when she smiled, and I could see her eyes that were simultaneously deep and oh-so-bright framed around the frizziest hair I had ever seen.

Her eyes lit up noticeably as my frame emerged from behind my mother. She peered down at me, and I could tell that her smile was genuine, if a bit wild.

"Oh there you are," mom said. She gestured down at me. "Ma'am, this is my daughter, Cassidy. Is she who you're looking for?"

"You're so very pretty." The words dripped slowly out of her mouth, like melted candy. I looked back at my father, still standing in the entryway. He could do nothing but shrug. I looked back up at the woman and offered an introduction.

"Hi there." I tried on a smile. "I'm not quite sure what's going on, actually. Could you start from the beginning?" She nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes. My name is Meg. I'm not new in town." She paused, as if that were supposed to elicit a response. Right as my mom opened her mouth to reply, the woman continued. "You're going to need to be less of a danger real soon." Her voice was bright, which contrasted the actual words she spoke.

"I'm sorry," I shook my head, "How have I been a danger?"

The woman looked offended at me. "Well, not yet. Ugh." She waved her hand dismissively. "Presents, company excluded, are not to be shared, present company excluded." Expectant, her bright eyes bored into my skull. I felt queasy in my stomach, and I suspected the woman wasn't as present as my parents might have thought at first. My mom was feeling the same way, but before she could say more, my father stepped up to the plate.

"I'm sorry, but you said you were looking for a pretty girl in this house."

The woman nodded. "Large house. Large neighborhood." She spoke as if that explained everything. My father nodded slowly in response.

"Is this the girl you were wanting to speak to?"

"The wall isn't going to repair itself, young lady." It was almost a threat, leveled right at me. "I expect the H.O.A. isn't going to have nice things to say."

"Did you break something?" My father asked, turning his head back at me. I shook my head. "I think you have the wrong place, Meg. Now if you'll excuse us-"

"She is going to have such fun." Her eyes darkened just a bit, and I heard more lucidity in her voice than before. I watched her fingers move at her sides, and the breeze took her scarf once more. Warmth flooded my neck and chest, spreading out to my arms and legs. I could have sworn she winked at me. The warmth became heat, reaching down and into-

"You should be careful you don't turn into circles." Meg promptly turned, wrapping the length of scarf around her neck and moving down our driveway at a swift pace. My father stood at the door for only a moment, then closed it quickly. He looked at my mother.

"Is it a full moon or something?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Not even a full moon brings crazies out like her." She turned to me. "Have you ever seen her before?" I shook my head.

"New to me too."

"Okay. If you see her again, you should probably go the other way." My mom turned back to my dad. "You're going to be late." He tilted his head back in exasperation.

"I'm driving the long way so I don't run into her again," he muttered, reaching up to the hooks where we kept our keys. He tossed a set to me. "Can you get her started up?" I nodded, reaching up to the coat rack for my purse. I slung it over my head, then darted up the stairs to grab my phone and sunglasses. I swiped the phone from my vanity, but after looking around for a moment, I didn't see the glasses. I usually kept them on my bedside table, or maybe in one of my vanity drawers. I kept searching, but didn't see them. Knowing me, I'd probably find them on my-

I lifted my hands to my brow and as if by magic, they fell down on to the bridge of my nose. I think I yelped a bit in surprise. Of course I'd left them on my head. I felt stupid. Shaking it off, I retreated back downstairs and into the entryway, heading through the garage door.

My dad's bronco was the last vestige of manhood he had left. At least that's how he'd sarcastically describe it. He put a lot of time into it. The engine, or whatever. It was red, but looked more like rust every day it sat in the sun. Not to mention the actual rust lining the bottom of its chassis. He bought it used off some guy on eBay years back -did you know you could buy cars on eBay?- and promised my mom it would be a summer project. I guess he forgot to specify which summer, because it sat on the side of our house for at least a year before he got around to putting wrench to bolt.

The interior had long been finished. Well, spruced up at the very least. There was vinyl covers on the seats, and he'd gotten a 'new' old-stock front panel for the dash to replace the cracking one it had come with. Probably got it off eBay too. I stuck the key into the ignition, cranking it to the right with my thumb, and felt the rumble of the engine shaking the car as it woke up.

I sat back in my seat, grabbing the seat belt with one hand absentmindedly. I felt the fabric rip against my nail roughly, friction from a bad texture. I looked down to see the corner peeling up at an odd angle, feeling unnatural. I swore, reaching down with my thumb and feeling the damage.

"Shit!" I had just gotten them done last night, and I'd been so careful not to let the polish get scuffed. Of course this would happen to me. "Could we just not?" I rubbed on my fingernail hard, attempting to find the best spot to buff it out as if I could do that with my bare hands. The off-angle piece broke off, and fell to the floor. Fuck. I glared at my fingertips. "Stay perfect." I had no way of knowing if my threat was actually heard.

My dad slammed the garage door as he exited the house, his big stompy boots echoing across the concrete. He smiled at me as he got in.