All the Rage

I turn back. “Tina—”

“No, just listen. I don’t think Brock would just leave you on that road and leave it at that. I don’t think Penny died because she found you, I think she died because she stopped him—” Her voice breaks, and it breaks me, a little. “In the locker room, you said if she got raped, she’d be better off dead and you meant it. But you weren’t talking about her. You were talking about what happened to you with Kellan.”

His name winds itself tight around me.

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“You should have believed me.”

It’s been inside me so long, I can barely choke it out. I carried it to the lake, when I thought I would say it to Penny, and I’ve buried those words since the lake with all the other things I’m never going to get to say to Penny. I bring a shaking hand to my eyes.

“I don’t know why you didn’t—” And then there are tears hot on my face before I can stop them. “Why—”

“Because it was easier.”

She stares at me. Her hands are so empty.

“You’re not better off dead,” she says. “I’m so sorry. I can’t … I know I can’t make it right but I just wanted to say that to you because—I don’t think anyone else here would—”

I can’t stay for it anymore. I leave her there because I don’t want sorry. It doesn’t bring dead girls back. I go to the kitchen and brace myself against the table, listening to myself breathing. Those voices on the radio.

“—we need to talk about how this is a very promising boy who is now facing second-degree murder charges. His life is ruined and I barely have a sense of who he is. I want to know his story—”

I reach out and turn the radio off so fast it clatters back. You’re not better off dead. It’s suffocating, it’s suffocating, hearing that when all this place has given me is the feeling that I should be, I would be, better off if I was one less girl …

You’re not better off dead. I close my eyes, a fury building inside me, starting in the center of me, bleeding its way out because even now, you’re not better off dead but I can’t make it right. The same words Penny said to me in the diner. I can’t make it right. But who could.

Where do you even start.

I open my eyes. I head back outside and Tina’s halfway down the walk now, a slow leaving, like she hopes I’ll call her back. I say, “Tina,” and she turns. My heart is heavy with the weight of my body and my body is so heavy with the weight of my heart.

“You want to help me find a girl in Godwit?”





before I tore the labels off, one was called Paradise and the other, Hit and Run. It doesn’t matter which is which. They’re both blood red.

Proper application of nail polish is a process. You can’t paint it on like it’s nothing and expect it to last. First, prep. I start with a four-way buffer. It gets rid of the ridges and gives the polish a smooth surface to adhere to. Next, I use a nail dehydrator and cleanser because it’s best to work with a nail plate that’s dry and clean. Once it’s evaporated, a thin layer of base coat goes on. The base coat protects the nails and prevents staining.

I like the first coat of polish to be thin enough to dry by the time I’ve finished the last nail on the same hand. I keep my touch steady and light. I never drag the brush, I never go back into the bottle more than once per nail if I can help it. Over time and with practice, I’ve learned how to tell if what’s on the brush will be enough.

Some people are lazy. They think if you’re using a highly pigmented polish, a second coat is unnecessary, but that’s not true. The second coat asserts the color and arms you against the everyday use of your hands, all the ways you can cause damage without thinking. When the second coat is dry, I take a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover to clean up any polish that might have bled onto my skin. The final step is the top coat. The top coat is what seals in the color and protects the manicure.

The application of lipstick has similar demands. A smooth canvas is always best and dead skin must be removed. Sometimes that takes as little as a damp washcloth, but other times I scrub a toothbrush across my mouth just to be sure. When that’s done, I add the tiniest amount of balm, so my lips don’t dry out. It also gives the color something to hold on to.

I run the fine fibers of my lip brush across the slanted top of my lipstick until my lips are coated and work the brush from the center of my lips out. After the first layer, I blot on a tissue and add another layer, carefully following the line of my small mouth before smudging the color out so it looks a little fuller. Like with the nail polish, layering always helps it to last.

And then I’m ready.





look at me.

I want you to look at me.





acknowledgments

I would like to thank:

Amy Tipton, my agent, for all the doors she’s opened for me. She was the first person who saw All the Rage, years ago, and she’s read it a million times since. And she read it the millionth time with the same enthusiasm as she did the first. I can’t imagine navigating publishing without her smarts, her humor, her support, or her perfectly timed Apocalypse When e-mail. It’s an honor to have such a hardworking advocate.

Sara Goodman, for her sharp editorial eye and everything she’s taught me about writing. It has been a privilege to explore many dark fictional roads with her as my guide. This one was longer than most, but that’s what happens when you have an editor who never settles for less than what you’re capable of. I’m grateful to have worked with and learned from someone so passionately dedicated to good books.