Pretty fucking disappointed, said Blaze, licking the straw through which she'd drunk her milkshake.
What's the big deal, Amy said.
You're gonna tell me I should be happy for him, right? For them?
You don't have to be happy about it.
Put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel. Imagine one day Sonic—
That would never happen.
Probably not. But if he—
If he was in love, how could I be disappointed?
Oh, shut the fuck up, Amy Rose. Project virtuosity, why don't you. Speak in platitudes, why don't you. Regurgitate corporate-sponsored opinions, why don't you. I'm talking reality here, baby girl. Not the stupid vacuous altruistic shit you post in your stories.
Amy breathed a heavy sigh and shouldered her purse and stood up from her chair.
I think that's enough Blaze for one day, she said.
God, you sound like me, Blaze said.
Before they left, Amy stopped off at the ladies' room and Blaze stood against the wall outside the door, waiting. She checked her phone for messages. None unread, except the one from Silver the night before. She put her phone away in her bag. A robot floor buffer rumbled slowly around the corner and started working the floor near the drinking fountain.
Amy was flapping her hands when she came out.
No paper towel, she said.
They made their way back through the lunch tables toward the big curved windows with the broken merry-go-round in front. The sun gleamed bright through the glass. The mall would be closing soon.
Used to be open all night, Blaze said to the back of Amy's neck, following her through the heavy doors, out into the humid air.
Used to be a movie theater right there, Amy said.
She was pointing to the big empty lot next to the lot they'd parked in. Blaze turned and looked. She saw a weasel with a backpack trudging across the lot toward the sidewalk. The concrete was cracked and uneven.
Really? I don't remember that, she said. We didn't come out this way when I was a kid.
Used to be hopping, Amy said. Free popcorn on Wednesdays. And they had one of those funnel things in the lobby. Y'know, where you put the coin in the slot and it runs around?
Blaze rounded the tail of Amy's truck and stood gripping the door handle. Amy clicked the button on her keychain. Blaze tugged at the handle but the door wouldn't open.
Hang on, Amy said.
The brake lights flashed and Blaze opened the door and climbed in.
Hurry up, she groaned as Amy climbed in next to her. The air was hot, suffocatingly hot, inside the cabin.
Amy thumbed the start button then pawed the armrest on the door and immediately all four windows buzzed down.
Get out of the fucking car.
What the fuck.
Blaze turned her head. She saw Amy's door pop open.
Get the fuck out.
Amy screamed, then there was a flurry of hands and arms and she seemed to fall sideways out of her seat.
Blaze felt the blood rushing up the veins of her neck. For a moment she could barely see, barely hear anything. Then her feet were on the pavement and her back was to the hood of the truck and Amy stood next to her with blood running down her face, her teeth red with blood, and she was trying to scream but only gurgles and weird unvoiced sounds came out.
Wallet, said the weasel.
He was holding a knife in his hand and the knife was pointed at Amy's throat. Amy didn't move. Her hands were shoulder-high, palms out, and the strap of her purse dangled from her elbow. She was shivering. Somehow she managed to loose the purse from her arm and the weasel took it and swiveled and hovered the knife at Blaze's chin. His mouth was moving but Blaze couldn't hear him. She opened her bag and reached one hand inside. Then the weasel reached his hand inside and their hands touched and Blaze felt a jolt in the bones of her fingers, her knuckles, her wrist, her elbow, on up through her shoulder. An electricity. She let her purse drop to the ground. Her phone and her housekeys and her cigarettes clattered out in a heap.
She saw the weasel's reflection in the shiny blue door of the car in front of her. She saw herself and she saw Amy. All three of them had short stubby legs and wide, curved torsos. No heads. She saw the weasel tuck away his knife and scurry around the rear bumper of Amy's truck. She thought for a moment he might take the truck too, but he didn't. The hurried scratch of his boots receded quickly into the distance.
Blaze stood still and Amy stood still. Then Amy leaned back against the door of the truck and slid down and sat in the pavement. Blaze bent to pick up her phone and opened it and checked her messages. None unread, except the one from Silver the night before.
Six months later the weasel with the backpack will be dead.
Two years later Amy's first child will be dead.
Three years later Silver will get very sick and move far away.
Ten years later Blaze will be sitting on the tailgate of a jeep parked on the beach, parked right on the sand, her fiancee plucking at the little twine bracelet knotted around her ankle, and she'll take a sip of a soda that isn't cold and way out above the gray line of the water the sun will be a blur behind a hazy veil of clouds and she'll think of Silver and Amy and friends long discarded and she'll feel that familiar spark inside her chest, that electricity, and she'll turn suddenly and press her arms around her fiancee's shoulders, his bones, his spine, his ribcage, the air in his lungs, thinking I must not let that happen to him, I must not lose him to the rot and ugliness of this world.
The ride home she'll grip his hand in the dark of the cabin watching the slow strobe of city lights flash in yellow bands across the shape of his face again and again, again and again until she starts to drift. When she wakes she'll be home, and he'll help her up and into the house, their house, its rooms quiet and dimlit, empty save for the couch and the TV and the bed upstairs and the boxes still needing unpacked. While she waits to use the shower she'll sit with her sandy feet on the couch, reaching back with her tongue to touch the gap between two teeth where last year they had to pull a bad premolar. Some days it will still taste like blood, that spot.
She'll feel a tightness in her throat. She'll reach for her phone. She'll scroll through today's photos and star all the best ones. She'll think, I hope I die first. God, I hope I die first.