We make a plan: I’ll drive the girls to our house while Diana’s mother runs an errand, and she’ll pick Diana up in an hour. I give her our address and lead the two friends to the car.
When I glance back, Ivy is walking so close to Diana that their arms keep bumping. Ivy has mild spatial issues—?she doesn’t always seem to know exactly where her body is. Still, it’s weird that it keeps happening.
“My sister is younger than I am, but she drives and I don’t,” she tells Diana as they climb into the back seat of the car.
“You’re both going to sit back there?” I say over my shoulder. “I feel like a chauffeur.”
“We want to sit together,” Ivy says. She scoots over to the middle seat, so she’s right next to Diana.
Diana says she once drove her father’s car in a parking lot, but it was scary and he yelled at her a lot, and now she isn’t sure she wants to learn how to drive. Ivy says she thinks Diana would probably be very good at driving a car and that she, Ivy, will probably learn to drive when she’s twenty-five, which is the first time I’ve heard anything about that.
I glance in the rearview mirror when we’re stopped at a light. It seems so crazy the way Ivy is sitting all smushed up against Diana’s side when there’s plenty of space to spread to. But also kind of sweet. Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship . . .
Too bad Diana doesn’t live closer, though.
At home, Ron’s car is gone, and Mom must have gone out with him, because she’s not around. I go upstairs and do some homework while I listen to music.
Eventually I get a text from Diana’s mom saying she’ll be here in five minutes, so I go downstairs to tell the girls. I follow the sound of the TV to the family room and peer around the doorway.
They’re sitting on the sofa together. Diana’s staring at the set, her mouth slightly open, totally absorbed by whatever they’re watching. But Ivy isn’t. Ivy’s staring at Diana. Like she’s some kind of miracle.
While I’m watching, she shifts her leg ever so slightly so it’s right against Diana’s, then puts out her hand and gently strokes an index finger along Diana’s lower arm. Diana doesn’t seem to notice, just shifts her arm a little without taking her eyes off the screen. Ivy lets her head fall back on the cushion and rolls it toward her friend, like she wants to rest her head on Diana’s shoulder—?only she doesn’t. She just huddles close like that—?as close as she can be without their heads actually touching. Her eyes slide sideways so she can still see Diana’s face.
I watch Ivy watching Diana watching TV, and something’s nagging at me—?Ivy’s reminding me of something, something I was just thinking about, and I can’t remember what it is, and that bugs me, and I’m standing there . . . and then I realize what it is, and I actually grab at the side of the doorway to steady myself because my legs feel suddenly wobbly as two words explode in my head, bright and shiny, my own internal neon sign:
SKIN HUNGER.
Twenty-Five
DIANA’S MOTHER IS IN A RUSH and steers Diana quickly to the front door, reminding her to thank us for having her over. “I know,” Diana says irritably, the way I would have at the age of eleven. But she’s over seventeen (how much over, I don’t know), and Ivy’s twenty. They’re not little kids.
Physically, they’re adults.
Ivy throws her arms around Diana, who stiffens and waits, expressionless, for the hug to end. But then she does say, “Thank you for having me over.”
“Can we do it again?” Ivy asks eagerly as she steps back. Her hand lingers on Diana’s arm.
“I don’t want to get boba tea again,” Diana says. “I don’t like bumps in my drinks.”
“We can do something else.”
“We just need to figure out the logistics,” Diana’s mom says, flashing a tired smile at me. “I wish we lived closer.”
Ivy says, “Can we do something tomorrow?”
“Sorry,” Diana’s mother says. “This was our only free time all weekend.”
“We have plans tomorrow too,” I remind Ivy. “With Ethan.” And then I feel a weird blast of anxiety. Ethan. What if I’ve been making a horrible mistake? Have I been?
“Okay. But soon?”
“Absolutely,” says Diana’s mother, and follows after her daughter, who has already headed down the walkway toward their car.
I close the front door and trail after Ivy, who’s on her way into the kitchen, where she opens the refrigerator and pulls out a carton of milk. “That was really fun,” she says, putting it on the counter and getting a glass out of the cabinet. “I want to see her again. And again.”
I study her as she pours, frowning in concentration, her tongue thrust out.
She’s careful. Doesn’t spill a drop.
I say, “You really like Diana, huh?”
She puts the milk carton on the table and takes a sip from the glass. “Yeah.”
“Can I ask you something?”
She shrugs, raises the glass to her lips again, swallows.
“If you were stranded on a desert island—?all alone there—?would you rather have Ethan or Diana come keep you company for however long you were stuck there?”
“Diana,” she says instantly.
“Even if you were stuck there forever?”
“Yeah. Why?” She gulps some more milk. When she puts the glass down, she has two white wings at the corners of her mouth.
“I guess I just didn’t realize how much you liked her.”
“I like her a lot.”
Does Ivy just adore and admire Diana in a best-friend kind of way? Or is there something else going on here?