Read Online Save Yourself by Kelly Braffet - Free Book Online Page A

o’clock? Why did Mother and Dad buy Layla a car when she’d been nothing but trouble for months?
    “Verna doesn’t lie,” Dad said. “She doesn’t have it in her.”
    “If Layla pushed her, though—”
    Mother still sounded doubtful, but when Dad said, “Verna is a good girl,” his voice was confident and sure.
    Verna’s hands gripped the rag and wrung it until it wept. Verna was a good girl. Layla was bad, Layla was fallen, but even Layla could almost be redeemed if sweet innocent Verna vouched for her. The child of God, the harmless sheep. The obedient little zombie.
    Anger rose up in her, hot but good. We are not those people, she thought. The distinctions were too clear and tidy and people weren’t like that, people weren’t clear and tidy. She wasn’t clear and tidy.
    Answering calls from home was part of the contract. Verna called Layla from the cordless phone in her parents’ room. When the older girl picked up, Verna could hear faint music in the background, a long, sibilant inhale. Layla was smoking. “What,” she said, sounding bored.
    “If they ask you about Brittany’s sweater,” Verna said, “tell them it’s blue.”
    Later, Layla said, “The sweater was a nice touch. Added verisimilitude.”
    The two girls sat on Verna’s bed, Verna propped up against the headboard—she’d been reading when her sister came in—and Layla sitting at the foot. Verna was wearing her pajamas, a tie-dyed shirt from church camp and flannel pants with kittens on them. Layla was dressed to go out. Verna could smell the patchouli oil her sister used, the leather of her jacket and boots.
    Verna didn’t look away from her book. “I don’t know why I helped you at all, after the things you called me today.”
    Layla looked surprised. “What did I call you? Sheep? Oh. Slut.” She nodded. “Yes. That was bitchy. I apologize.” Verna still didn’t look at her, and Layla touched her blanket-covered foot. “Seriously, Vee. I’m sorry. You did good tonight.”
    “Well.”
    “Well what?”
    “Grammar,” Verna said. “I did well.”
    Layla smiled. Her real smile, not the Justinian one. “You’re priceless. I bust out a fifty-center like verisimilitude and you’re jumping on me about good versus well ?” She patted Verna’s foot again. “Get up. Change your clothes.”
    Verna stared at her. “Why?”
    “Because Justinian wants me to bring you to the fire circle, and you can’t wear flannel pants with kittens on them.”
    So Verna traded her pajamas for a long black dress of Layla’s, and—even though she was so nervous she was shaking—managed to hold still while Layla ringed her eyes with black kohl and covered her lips with waxy, wine-colored lipstick. “It feels weird,” said Verna, working her sticky new lips and blinking her stinging new eyes, and Layla said, “That’s just Satan taking over your soul.”
    Down the hallway, close to the walls to avoid the creaking floorboards, and through the silent kitchen they crept. Then out the sliding door and across the lawn toward a car idling at the curb, old and boxy but as silver as moonlight. The passenger door opened and the blue-haired girl stepped out. “You brought her,” she said, not sounding annoyed or even disappointed. She took Verna’s shoulder and hustled her into the back, where Verna found herself pressed against a boy with a shaved head that she’d never seen before. He laughed, slapping his knee, and Verna heard something clink. The blue-haired girl squeezed in on Verna’s other side.
    “Hello, Verna,” Justinian said from the front seat, where he’d just finished kissing Layla.
    “Verna, Criss, Eric,” Layla said, pointing in turn. “Let’s go.”
    The blue-haired girl—Criss—giggled. “Aw, Layla, you gothed her up.” When she spoke the stud in her lip glinted.
    Eric laughed again. The sound was grating and slightly manic. “Still wearing her Jesus Saves chastity belt, I hope.”
    Verna huddled deeper inside