Their Paid Girl

Their Paid Girl - Part 7

          I slammed the door as hard as I could. The windows shattered in their frames.

          Esther’s wide chocolate eyes peered at me from around the bathroom’s doorway as she popped around the corner. I could tell she was naked, probably just getting ready to get into the shower. Thankfully, I could only see her head and shoulders.

          Well, this was a tad awkward. Talk about bad timing.

          “Shawna?” she asked nervously, as though not fully sure that it really was me.

          I glowered in response.

          I guess I looked like a madwoman who’d used her teeth to get out of her containment cell. My face was flushed red from my speed-walking home from the park. I’d walked half of the city on foot to get back to our campus, raging the whole time and also struggling not to cry.

          My hair was wild and tangled from the wind, and it had been beginning to pour when I’d been only halfway home. Every thread on me was drenched, and I was slowly creating my own pond where I was standing, from all the water running down me. Oh, and all this had been done barefoot, because I’d lost my shoes.

          Lost. Ha. The shoes had all been a complete loss, since I’d missed. It wasn’t fair that shoes were the most useful things to throw, but there were always only two of them to spare.

Plus I’d left my hoodie on the ground, so my teeth where chattering from the cold. I swear, if I die of pneumonia this time for real, I was returning as a spirit to haunt Adam till the day he died. Then my spirit would continue haunting his spirit.

          “Er—I think you need the shower more than I do,” Esther finally suggested.

          “No,” I growled, stalking further into our room, Esther still sticking her head to watch me.

          I began rummaging around under my bed, finally pulling out a cardboard box. I found a sharpie and pulled the cap off with my teeth, scrawling on the box’s side.

          DEPOSIT SHAWNA’S SHOES AND HOODIE HERE.

          Then I marched back over to the door, yanked it open, and chucked the box out, making sure the label was clearly seen.

There. If Adam revealed to have a speck of decency somewhere in him and decided to bring back my things, I didn’t want the bother of seeing his face. It wasn’t likely he’d actually do such a thing, but I still would take no risk of seeing him.

“Right. What happened to you? You look like they threw you off their balcony and you landed in a tree before walking home in a tsunami.” I guess Esther thought this was all the Wellses’ fault. I suddenly didn’t know if I wanted to tell her about Adam or not.

“Gosh. Thanks,” I replied sarcastically, before giving an epic sneeze.

Awesome. I’d probably caught a cold, and the fact that I still hadn’t stopped chattering was not a good sign. I vaguely wondered if the pale blue tinge on my skin was cause for alarm yet, or if I should only start worrying if I got a bit bluer.

“Seriously,” Esther offered again. “Why don’t you take a nice, hot shower, and I’ll just—”

I sighed. “Es, no thanks. All I want to do is change my clothes, get in bed, and not wake up for a week. Go take your shower; I don’t even want to know how long you’ve been naked.”