It wasn’t that I was too good for a dress, it was that I had better things to do than care about dresses, but it wasn’t worth explaining the difference.
Owen strolled up with his chin lifted and a plaid ascot tied around his neck. “Ladies.” He adjusted the puffy neck scarf.
His expression drooped when Cassidy totally ignored him. When it came to my scrawny, towheaded best friend, she seemed to have a wide blind spot. “Seems like he’s taking a long time, doesn’t it?” She went to the door and knocked. “How’s it coming, Adam?”
Moments later the latch clicked and the door slowly drifted open. Adam was breathing heavy. His fists constricted into tight balls at his sides. His lower teeth jutted out in front of his upper ones. The all-black getup only served to make him look more dangerous.
Cassidy buttoned his collar. “If you don’t like this one, maybe you’ll like the pinstripe better.” The black suit was long enough for each of his limbs and the pant legs reached all the way to the floor as they were supposed to.
“No.” Adam’s eyes cut away from her.
She cocked her head. “Navy then? You really do look handsome in the black, though. With a silver tie, I think.” She frowned.
He trained his gaze on his tennis shoes, which looked out of place when paired with the dress pants. “I look like a monster.”
My eyes snapped up. A monster. The word roared in my ears like the sound of an 18-wheeler on a highway. I peered around him into the fitting room and the long mirror inside, and it all clicked into place. Adam didn’t have a mirror in the cellar. Adam had been given strict instructions not to change or shower with the other boys on the team. Adam was different. But he’d never seen the full extent of just how much so.
I felt as if I were trying to swallow a wad of steel wool. Cassidy’s laugh was shaky and high-pitched. “You’re a tough one to figure out, Smith.” Then she balanced on her tippy-toes and kissed his cheek. Adam couldn’t feel it, I knew, and seemed only vaguely aware that Cassidy’s mouth was grazing his own cold, dead skin.
A monster.
I wouldn’t have thought of it like that, and I was a little angry at him for using that particular noun. A monster. His features grew darker and more sunken in, as if Adam was actually retreating into himself. Before now, he’d looked down and seen the scars left on his body. Why didn’t I realize the full extent of the damage, once finally appreciated, would bother him?
“One more.” Cassidy held up a finger. “Pretty please? For me?” What was it about attractive girls that made pouting an acceptable means to an end after the age of four and a half? “White shirt with this one,” she said.
“I thought the black shirt looked nice,” I added hastily. “Maybe keep it on.”
“With pinstripes?” Cassidy gave a small shake of her head. Adam clomped back into the dressing room, where a pinstripe suit awaited. I drummed my finger on my knee. I would have ripped the mirror off the wall if I could have, but it would have been hard to come up with an excuse for Cassidy. Only vampires and ghosts were afraid of mirrors. Maybe I could claim he was one of those.
Cassidy, Owen, and I fell quiet. I imagined that we all felt like intruders listening to the struggles of man versus fabric taking place within the tiny confines of that fitting room. I heard the rip of a seam and a frustrated growl. Owen’s eyes went wide. A heavy crash. Then the din of cracking glass like a fault line traveling through an iced-over pond.
When Adam bellowed, it sounded like a trapped animal. Fibers split and scraps of black fell to the floor. The door flew open and banged against the wall. That was the moment the shards of mirror lost their hold and clattered to the ground around Adam’s bare feet.
“Adam,” Cassidy gasped.
A river of blood flowed from his knuckles. Red spotted the white tails of his untucked shirt, which had been ripped at the shoulders and collar. Adam’s eyes were hard, as if they’d died two weeks ago along with the rest of him. But this time for good.
Unseeing, he shoved past the three of us, just in time for the store manager to see him break into a run out of the store. “Sir!” the manager called. “Sir, you haven’t paid for those.”
Cassidy hadn’t seen this side of him. Neither had Owen, not really. Only I had. “Get his things,” I ordered Owen. “I’m going after him.”
The bell attached to the door jangled on my way out. I knew they’d expect us to pay for the damage. I also knew I didn’t have the money and my list of repairs—phone, car, Adam—was already long enough as it was.
I found the nearest exit to my left and sprinted toward it. Orange light seeped out of the horizon, turning the sky’s clouds into an inverted map of the world. Below, the dimming parking lot was empty. I ran both ways, searching. “Adam!” I called. “Adam! Wait!” I wheezed the last few words before I had to hunch over and put my hands over my knees.