I smile, pride welling in my chest. “She’s getting stronger.”

“Yeah,” Wren murmurs. “But at what cost? What if Jack – what if he –”

Wren takes a bite of burrito and swallows nervously.

“What did he do, Wren, back in middle school? Give me a hint. Just one tiny dust bunny-sized hint.”

Wren’s silent, glowering.

“Avery told me she hired guys from her parent’s docks. She said she hated Sophia. What did she hire them to do? I know you know. I know you were there when it happened.”

He flinches.

“Avery told me to film it. That’s the only reason I was there. I was head of the film club in middle school. I had access to all the cameras, so she bribed me into coming to the park and hiding in the bushes with her and filming it.”

“Filming what?” I hiss.

The lunch bell rings before he can answer, and he gets up and leaves quickly, shame crippling his face.

I walk alongside Jack and Kayla as they go to their next class. I zap a revenge-suspect with a glare, and she veers off course with her handful of shaving cream. That’s right, keep walking. There’ll be no shaving-cream-on-Kayla-lovely-face today, thank you very much. Or, if there is, I will shave you. Down to the bone.

“You’re making threats aloud,” Jack deadpans.

“It’s good for business,” I chime. Kayla smiles, and links her other arm with mine.

“I’ve got two of my favorite people right here. It’s amazing. You’re amazing!”

I shoot her a sheepish smile and she ruffles my hair. How could I have ever been jealous of such an innocent, lovely girl? I’m ashamed of myself, a hot knot working its way into my throat, chock full of guilt. She deserves a better friend than me. She deserves castles and kingdoms and all the fairytale endings that still exist in this meager world. All of them should be hers.

She kisses Jack on the cheek and goes into the Chem lab. Jack and I stand outside the door, each with different classes, but a tense thread rooting us to our place in front of the mottled glass.

Jack speaks without looking at me.

“You’re happy.”

“Generally, yeah.”

“No. Not generally. Generally you’re miserably sad and dour, hiding it behind the jokes and passionate outbursts. You’re like fire. But it’s a sickly fire. Everyone can see that.”

I open my mouth to argue, when he interrupts.

“But when you’re with Kayla, when she’s happy and smiling at you, that fire turns. It goes from sick to full, healthy, lively. She makes you happy.”

“She’s the first friend I’ve ever really had.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“Why are you cheating on Sophia with her?”

He doesn’t flinch, but his eyes splinter with a fraction of pain.

“I’m not cheating. I visit Sophia every week – ”

“But why go out with Kayla all of a sudden? I thought…I thought you didn’t really like her? You kept saying she’s annoying. So why go out with her?”

Jack fixes his icy eyes on me, hair falling into them a little. He doesn’t answer, and pivots and strides away, the crowd parting around him. For him.

***

Isis looked up at me with those warm, burning, flame-mahogany eyes and asked me.

“So why go out with her?”

She’s oblivious. I still don’t believe it myself. But I know it’s the right thing to do.

She has no idea how much Kayla’s smile makes her smile. Unconscious, soft grins form on her face when she looks at a happy Kayla, and full-blown joy crackles across her features when she laughs with Kayla. Kayla reminds her of who she used to be, maybe – naïve and innocent.

But as Isis cocks her head and waits for my answer, she doesn’t realize in that moment she’s just as innocent as Kayla. She’s never been loved. She’s only given love. She has no idea why someone like me would go out with her friend, if only to make her friend happy, and her happy in turn. As long as Kayla can kiss my cheek and talk about Vogue and Nicki Minaj with me, Isis smiles. Real, true smiles. Smiles free of pain or jaded bitterness. Isis truly doesn’t believe anyone would like her enough to kiss her, let alone do something to make her smile. There’s no coyness in her question. She simply has no idea what it’s like to be loved.

Love? I frown and scratch the notion out with an imaginary mental pen. But as I walk away from her, the answer too hard to say, the urge to turn around and look at her just one more time before I go is overpowering.

It’s evidence.

It’s cold hard fact that mental pens don’t need to scratch anything out.

When had it happened? How stupid and predictable was it? The new girl - the manic, rambunctious, permanently-sugar high girl – barreling into town like a whirlwind and demanding I pay attention. Demanding I fight. Demanding everything but the one thing that’s begun to grow inside me.

I should burn it.

The plant is still young. It hasn’t flowered yet, its roots haven’t laced over my heart just yet. I can still stop it. It’s not too late. Sophia is still a strong flower in my chest. She’s the only one who should matter. Guilt sickens me. Sophia. I’m being unfaithful, aren’t I? Escorting wasn’t truly cheating – I loved none of the women. None at all. They were cows to be milked for money, and that was it. I love only Sophia. Sophia has always been there. Sophia is sick, and she needs me. I can’t abandon her, or leave her. I’m the only one she has. It was never a problem, since no other woman ever held my attention. But now…

Something tears at me, serrated and sharp.

It’s too late.

I’m an idiot, and it’s too late.

***

Avery invites Kayla and I to her Halloween party on Saturday. I’m a little wary, since Avery smiled too much at Kayla when she invited us, but I’ll go, if only to make sure Kayla doesn’t meet any trouble. And with all the popular girls who’ve had a crush on Jack forever being invited too, I triply have to go. I will be the silent protector Gotham Kayla needs.

“You’re going as that?” Kayla sniffs at my tight-fitting latex Batgirl costume. I wince and adjust a brewing camel toe.

“It’s a symbol of my commitment to justice!” I crow, and whip out a fake bat-star from my utility belt. Kayla laugh-sighs and pulls my chin up. Her mermaid costume – a skirt with a tail, drags behind her, and her bra is shimmery and made of spray-painted seashells. Her dark hair is woven with smaller shells, and her make-up is green-blue and likewise sparkly.

“Okay, just hold still and let me do your make-up, at least.”

“Make me look like an actual bat.”

“Ew! No!”

“Give me a huge proboscis nose like those weird bats in Africa.”

“Ugh!”

“Smear my face in guano.”

“Okay, that’s it, you’re being nasty and it’s running your eyeliner so you need to officially stop.”

I laugh and mime zipping my mouth shut as she works, fingers delicately smearing eye shadow and lip gloss and foundation on my face.

“They don’t even put this much makeup on dead people for open casket wakes,” I complain.

“Hush. I’m almost done.”

When she’s finished I open my eyes and look at a whole new person. Smokey eyeliner and pink gloss make me look –

“Beautiful!” Kayla claps her hands.

“Not ugly,” I correct. “Your work is great, it’s just my face. Sorry you didn’t have something nicer to work with.”

“Oh, shut up!” She smacks my shoulder. “Now c’mon. We’re gonna be late.”

She grabs her purse and keys and stops in living room, tiptoeing into her father’s study. She’s only gone for a few seconds before she dashes out, a bottle of expensive-looking whiskey in hand and squealing.

“C’mon c’mon c’mon run run run!”

I shriek in the back of my throat for no reason and run after her out the door, my cape billowing in the cool October night. The sky is steely and filled to capacity with heavy rain clouds. As we pull up to Avery’s jack o’ lantern-lined driveway, a few fat drops of rain start to fall. Orange and black lights are strung everywhere inside, bowls of orange punch and pumpkin cookies and cinnamon cakes crowd the kitchen counter. Girls dressed as skin-showing cats and nurses and witches crowd the house, and guys in football-player costumes and president costumes and rapper costumes with ridiculous gold chains stride around. I high-five the guy who’s dressed up as Pac-Man, because he’s the only creative costume here. As more people arrive, the line of booze bottles on the counter grows. As the night grows darker, the jack o’ lanterns glow eerily on the porch, the wind howling through the trees outside. Guys scare girls and girls shriek, and someone starts the music when Avery finally comes down in a resplendent princess dress, complete with a tiara, perfectly-curled red hair, and a fluffy blue ball gown.