Chapter II: Winnie

Billy's grip around her wrist returned with a vengeance as soon as they turned away from Mike. His dirty blackened fingernails were starting to dig into her flesh. His mouth was pressed into a tight, thin line, and his bright, blue eyes blazed with unkempt, unruly anger that he was sure to unleash upon her once her shift was up, or he could douse her with it now, in front of the entire town.

"I'm sorry." She said. Her voice barely rose above a whisper. She let the words sit for a moment. He dug his nails deeper into her skin. From the little crescent markings the made, blood appeared, in delicate, scarlet droplets. With a hushed yelp, she yanked away. The droplets smeared across the back of her hand, and into the crevasses of Billy's palm. He backed away, arms up in surrender, red palm facing away from him so that everyone could see.

He curled his crimson-stained fingers into a fist, and brought it down to his side. His other hand found the thick leather of the lanyard. He brushed his fingertips across the smooth, cool surface of it. Winnie noticed that his eyes, instead of blazing with anger, had calmed and stirred into contemplation.

"Go clean up. The first aid kit's in the office." He spat, tone dripping with pure disgust. "Then you're on snack bar duty. Can't have you serving people with all that." He lowered his Ray-Bans over his eyes, brown tinted lenses gleaming dangerously in the white-hot Sun.

She felt her head bobble back and forth in a single nod. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. The markings cried out in discontent, the pain sharp, and unforgiving. She turned away so that he didn't see her face crumpled, and the rivulets of salt water go pouring down her cheeks in jagged, wayward directions.

The first aid kit in that tiny, cramped office with its single, naked lightbulb and high-piled stacks of unpaid bills, paychecks and blank swim-lesson registration forms was nowhere to be found at first. After much digging through the drawers, she found the tiny plastic Rite-Aid box, and popped it open. Inside was a roll of thinning gauze, and a little brown bottle with a faded label that read, in bright, red letters, "El Diablo Spirits".

She started to unroll the gauze wrap, and found that it was thinner than she'd realized. Big, gaping holes appeared every couple of centimeters. It was completely unusable. She let out a little sigh, and turned her sights up towards that single, flickering bulb.

"I got some, Miss Winnie!"

Only one person called her that. She turned her head, and was greeted with the gap-toothed smile of Holly Wheeler. It was clear that she had just gotten out of the water. Her blonde pigtails that usually seemed to explode from the top of her head were stringy and heavy-looking, weighed down by the water that hadn't been stung from them. A few stray strands were plastered to her forehead, but she didn't seem to mind. In her soft, pudgy little hand were three little band-aids, one was purple, one was pink, and one was green. "Mommy put them in Mike's backpack 'cause he used to always fall off his bike-"

"Th-that's enough, Holly." Mike stuttered. Winnie's gaze flicked up to his face, which was wrought with thinly-veiled embarrassment. "Just..just give Winnie the band-aids, okay?" He set a thin, long-fingered hand on Holly's shoulder and gently nudged her closer towards the girl behind the desk. Winnie accepted the three bandages with her shaking hands (which she willed to stop), and gave Holly her brightest, most cheeriest smile.

"Thanks, Holly. These are very pretty. Your mommy has..good taste in bandaids." She forced the words from her lips, but she couldn't make them have meaning.

"You're welcome!" The girl chirped. Mike's fingers curled around her shoulder. He started to pull her away from Winnie. The awkward expression on his face only seemed to grow tighter.

"C'mon, Holly. Heather's waiting for you! You gotta go swim with her and..uh, the rest of the little minnows, right?" He shook her lightly. Holly's little face scrunched in disdain at the sound of Heather's name. She stomped her one of damp little feet against the stained, shag carpeting on the office floor in pure disdain.

"But I don't like Miss Heather! She's not as fun as Miss Winnie!" She whined, bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

"Come on, Holly. You gotta go."

"Fine." With her arms crossed over her chest, the little girl stormed past her eldest brother and reluctantly rejoined her group of little minnows.

Mike watched as she was reunited with her class of giggling girls, and suddenly crouched down to meet Winnie's eye level. She had to admit, that for such a tall, skinny guy like himself, he folded himself up rather gracefully.

"You need..uh, help, putting those on?" He gesture to her open palm, still cupping the bandages.

She nodded again, like a puppet on a string. No, she didn't want help, she wanted to say. She wanted to be left alone to fix her mistake and work at that stupid snack bar that was never ever free of crumbs, or candy wrappers, or sticky soda spills. But instead of saying any of that, she held out her palm with the bandages, and her bloodied forearm.

She watched as he carefully peeled the plasters from their wrappers, and when they were free from those, he held them at both ends, pinching them carefully at each corner to keep them from wrinkling and sticking together. First on the cuts was the green band-aid, then the pink one, and then the purple one.

"Thanks.." She whispered. "There..there was nothing in here for me to use." She gestured to the gauze that sat before them, unceremoniously unrolled across the carpet. The bottle of El Diablo sat in its tiny compartment in the Rite-Aid box.

"..I saw what he did." Mike said, with a sort of curtness and sharpness Winnie had never heard come out of his mouth. His thick, dark brows furrowed together, and one side of his mouth titled down into a half-frown. "He's an ass. I don't get why you just leave."

"It's not that simple." She replied.

"Yeah, yeah it is." He unfolded himself up to his full height while she stayed, knelt on the carpet. The fibers were digging into her kneecaps. He offered her his hand.

She took it without hesitation.

"But..your sister." She wondered aloud as she got to her own feet. Her legs threatened to buckle in with unbridled excitement. "She can't stay here alone."

Mike let out a gentle, throaty laugh, and looked over at the pool. Across the thirty foot radius, all the way on the other side, was Mrs. Wheeler, sitting in a high-backed lounge chair in a tight, pink bikini, lathering herself up with tanning lotion. Sitting beside her was Mr. Wheeler, red baseball cap sitting on his balding head, his face was shaded by the front page of the New York Times.

Mike's hands were much bigger than hers. They were soft, yet rough in some places, probably from gripping the handlebars of his bike too tightly, or something. She could only marvel over how small her hand was in comparison. Her nail polish was chipped in some places. The baby pink color painted on them was fading.

She didn't care. Everyone else was too wrapped up in themselves to care, so the two of them easily slipped past the gate, and into the rest of the world.

The sidewalk burned the bottoms of their feet. The grass that poked from the cracks on the pavement tickled their ankles. They walked in silence through the empty stretches of streets, but they glanced at each other every once in a while. It was as if a shroud of shyness had been spread upon them both.

It was fifteen minutes before they caught sight of a shop. The brick was painted a soft yellow color. The striped awning was sun-bleached and worn. The metal framework that held it together was sluggish. It clanked and whistled in a gust of wind that blew by.

The sign above the door said Melvald's. As the two of them neared it, Mike's grip on her hand loosened. His eyes were fixed to the wide-paned window, and standing on the other side, rooting through a wire basket of felt scrunchies and glittery barrettes were two girls.

One was short and thin, with wavy brown hair that just barely reached her shoulders. An old, tattered plaid shirt hung from her slight shoulders, and was paired with equally tattered jeans and tennis shoes. The other girl was tall, and thin, with pale blue eyes and fiery red hair that seemed to have a mind of its own.

The smaller girl looked up and made eye-contact with Mike. Her deep, brown eyes were arresting - once you looked at them, you couldn't look away. Her mouth turned up into a giant grin, and she waved wildly at Mike, who gently waved back. The red-haired girl looked up at Mike briefly, wrinkled her freckled nose in disgust, and pretended to look interested in a deep blue scrunchie before tossing it back into the bin.

"Your friends?" Winnie asked, looking over at Mike, who nodded vigorously. He started pulled open the door, his grip on her hand tightened again.

"Mike!" The brunette girl cried. She dropped the barrettes she had been looking at and outstretched her arms for a hug. The barrettes clattered to the linoleum floor and bounced about in every possible direction. The girl didn't care.

She wrapped her arms around Mike's neck and let her head rest on her shoulder. Winnie let go of his hand and stepped aside to let him have a moment with the girl. The linoleum was cool against her bare feet. The red haired girl stood to the side, too, staring at Winnie in the same way Billy had, but it wasn't in disgust, but rather confusion, and Winnie couldn't blame her. She was standing in the middle of that general store, barefoot, and only wearing her red one-piece bathing suit.

"I missed you." The brunette girl said softly as she pulled away from the hug.

"I missed you, too, El."

"El?" Winnie repeated. The name had a nice ring to it. The girl, El, looked over at her. Her smile faded away.

"Yes." She said curtly. Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed her arm. Winnie had completely forgotten about it - the throbbing pain that pulsed from it had slowed down immensely.

"What happened?" El looked Winnie right in the eyes - those dark, intoxicating eyes held her tight. She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

"Billy happened." The red haired girl filled in the gaps that Winnie couldn't.

"How did you know?" Winnie said quickly. She ripped her arm from El's grasp. El went rigid, and backed away, right into the bin full of barrettes and scrunchies.

"Because I'm his step-sister." The redhead stepped forward, arms crossed over her chest. "He..he talks about you. Winnie, right?"

"Yeah." Winnie answered. "He..he's.."

"He's a piece of shit." Max snapped. Her pale blue eyes softened. "Sorry." She offered Winnie her hand. "Max Mayfield."

"Winnie Carter." Winnie took her hand, and shook it gently. She looked over at El, who still stood by the bin, body rigid.

"It's okay, you know." She said. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I didn't?" El asked. She raised a brow at Winnie, who didn't know how to reply with anything besides a shake of her head.

"..So, uh, what are you guys doing here?" Mike cut through the thickening uneasiness with the simple question. Max looked up at him scornfully, and set a hand on her hip. "What do you think we're doing? It's the hottest day of the year, and we-"

"We were getting more ice cream." El was bent over the cooler that was sitting by the front entrance. Cold air floated from the open slat. It wafted over to Winnie and kissed her cheeks.

"What are you doing here without shoes?" A voice floated over from one of the isles, and a few moments later, a boy wearing a green mesh vest. In his arms was a box practically overflowing with tubes of Colgate toothpaste. A friendly smile laced his lips, and his eyes were just as such, but they were shaded by the straight-across bangs of his otherwise cute uneven bowl cut.

"Will. I..I didn't know you worked here." Mike's eyes went wide. He shifted from one bare foot, to the other.

"Mom's needed some help running the place, since she started her new job." Will set the box on the ground and folded his hands in front of him.

"Oh. Uh, cool."

"Ice cream?" Eleven said. In each of her hands, she held Hoodsie cups.

"I'll pay." Mike patted his pockets, in search of the lump in pocket that was his wallet, but he came up with nothing. Max pulled a crumpled five dollar bill from her shirt pocket and pressed it into Will's hand.

The sign that hung in Melvald's door was flipped from "Open" to "Closed", and the five kids filtered out the back door. Instead of an empty back lot, they were met with the sight of a field, filled with an army of daisies. Rows of them went on for miles, all in different stages of blooming. The group chose a spot that was still naked, only covered by grass seedling.

Before Winnie could even rip off the top of her Hoodsie, El sat beside her, transfixed on her shoulder.

"Pretty." El whispered. "Angel wings, right?"

"Yup." Winnie said tightly.

"How long?" El asked.

"A month or two."

El carefully reached out a finger, and traced the careful blue lines that had been etched into her arm. The pain came back, but it wasn't like the pain she felt when Billy's nails had dug into her flesh.

This type of pain she felt was focused and precise. It was pain with a purpose, with an outcome. It wasn't senseless.

"I want one." El said. She turned over one of her wrists, and right near a protruding vein were thick, tiny numbers that read 0-1-1. "I don't want this anymore."

"..I.." Winnie trailed off. The wind blew the rest of her words away. "..Sure." She said finally, eyes still transfixed on the three numbers. Droplets of crimson suddenly splattered upon them. She looked up, and El's nose was leaking twin rivers of blood that didn't seem to want to stop.

"Great." El said with another wide grin. She held out her hand. "Friends?" She asked.

Winnie handed her a napkin from the crumpled pile they had brought with them from the shop.

"Friends." She whispered back, swallowing back her doubt as she said the single syllable.