I admired my cute, strange doodles and hoped Karen would notice that they were supposed to be different silly interactions between Tels and Claykun (the two most memorable characters we’d made up years ago for books we wanted to write someday, long after we’d graduated college and bought a house together in Alaska). I’d worked hard on the art I stared at, and though I couldn’t draw a straight line, I thought I’d done a good job.

But...to be on the safe side, I removed the bright silver pen I always kept behind my ear and labeled Tels and Claykun. When I finished, the pen went to its usual place and I crossed the crowded Rod and Gun club floor to where Karen chatted with Jade and Lori.

Karen had her back to me, and a wicked urge struck me. I shimmied up behind my best friend, leaned over her shoulder, and cried, “Allon-sy!”

Karen let out one of her odd shrieks she did when utterly terrified and spun around. Her small-featured face had turned tomato red and her slanted golden-brown eyes were as round as my large man-hands. I giggled, and Jade and Lori joined in.

“What—the—hell?” Karen croaked. She sucked in air as she clutched her chest. “Why…the heart attack?”

I poked her soft stomach. “Because I can.”

Karen stuck out her tongue, though her skin had faded back to its pretty light tan color. Her breathing had yet to even out. “You suck.”

I batted my eyelashes. “Doesn’t stop you from adoring me.”

“Like a diabetic adores an insulin coma.”

I chuckled harder, and Karen finally cracked a smile. Jade and Lori, seeing that the fun had passed, muttered good-byes and shuffled off toward the long food table on the other side of the building.

When I managed to stop cackling like a cracked-out hyena, Karen asked, “What do you want?”

“Here.” I shoved the decorated-computer-paper-wrapped present I’d gotten her into her hands. “Open it but be careful. Don’t rip Claykun’s face!”

Karen studied my handiwork and one of her unruly black eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Why are they in the same dress at the same time?”

I shrugged. “Tels wanted to see if they would both fit.”

Another smile tugged on Karen’s thin lips. “Somehow they did.”

“Much to Tels’s delight.”

Karen shook her head and slipped her long fingers under a fold in the paper. She pulled until the tape holding it in place came undone. She removed the thin book inside and read the title.

“Oh, Mo,” she whispered, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I can’t believe you did this.”

My mouth puckered in response to my confusion. Karen was a lot more…grateful than I had imaged she’d be. No, scratch that, she seemed agonizingly touched by my gift. Why the extreme reaction?

I studied the person I considered a second sister closer. Oh, okay. Wait. Hardly an ounce of joy was in Karen’s expression, and I knew why. The powerful demon Depression had its unforgiving teeth in her.

The book hadn’t done that to her (well, probably not). I figured her dad had decided—but, no. No father would refuse to attend his daughter’s graduation party just because he was divorcing her mother. Mr. Holm wasn’t that big of a douche bag, was he?

“Karen?”

Karen looked at me, realized I could see her about to break down and bawl, and bowed her head so her short black hair made a curtain between us as she pretended to be interested in the various authors’ praises for the novel she had clamped in her hands. “This is so nice.” Despite all her effort to hide her sadness, her voice shook.

I sucked in my left cheek and chewed on it. That was her answer to the question I wasn’t sure I had the balls, or right, to ask. I guess Karen’s dad was the epic prick everyone knew and wanted to stab.

“I know it broke your heart that Odin ate your copy, so when I spotted this at the mall the other day I couldn’t help but get it.” I hoped to distract her from causing a scene I didn’t think she could handle.

“But I…I didn’t get you anything.” Karen sniffled and poked her fingers at her eyes.

I pretended I didn’t notice as I gazed around at the other people in the room, at our friends and families celebrating us graduating high school. Most of the family members were mine. There should have been twice as many people, but most of Mr. Holm’s side of the family had decided to avoid the event because they weren’t mature enough to deal with whatever Mrs. Holm’s relatives might say about Karen’s dad’s infidelity and ultimate destruction of his family.

“I didn’t get it with the intention of receiving things,” I told her when I could no longer take the awkward silence. “I just didn’t think it would be right for you to go off to college without Empire.”

“But that shouldn’t—right.” Karen latched on to a pinch of her usual sentimental aloofness and swallowed her melancholy. She straightened, rubbed her enflamed cheeks, and flashed me a grin that resembled a grimace. “Thanks, Mo.”

“Just make sure Odin doesn’t destroy this one.”

I forced a laugh, and my stomach flipped like I’d eaten too much ice cream. Ugh, I really should have done more to comfort her, but Karen probably would have run into the bathroom if I’d tried. Or gotten mad and glared at me until I stopped talking.

Should I have let that stop me, though? Pressing the issue would have been healthy for Karen, right? Wasn’t that my job as her best friend, to do what needed to be done for her regardless of what her reaction towards me would be? Had I acted cowardly or respectful?

All the questions swirling in my head triggered a headache. I rubbed my temples and begged the waking monster to go into hiding. The best way to chase it away was caffeine, especially of the carbonated syrup variety, but I couldn’t give in, not if I wanted to drop the stubborn fat I carried around my middle. My will had to be stronger than Pepsi’s siren song.

Eventually, my headache eased enough that I breathed a bit easier.

While I’d been thinking and coaxing a headache into submission, Karen had gained back her rock-like composure. She gestured to the blue and gold decorations that covered the room. “I really like what your sister did in here.”

I nodded agreement, though I thought Maddy had gone overboard, or maybe I just didn’t like the abundance of my high school’s colors. It made me feel like I was stuck in the belly of the beast. Hadn’t I gotten the golden ticket that told me I had completed my prison sentence and no longer had to have anything to do with that awful place?

“Hey, I wanted to talk about—Oh, great.” Karen’s expression darkened as her focus shifted away from me.

I gazed over my shoulder to see what had captured Karen’s attention and turned her mood sour. Yay, I thought as my ex-girlfriend and enemy number one to Karen stepped out of the crowd. Violet met my eyes, flashed me an incredible smile, and increased her pace.

“Hey, honey.” She invaded my personal space and kissed me on both cheeks. Her hands snaked around my back and brushed the top of my ass as she embraced me.

I untangled myself from her warm, inviting arms. “Hi, Violet.”

I knew shouldn’t still want her; I shouldn’t have to fight the urge to plant my lips on her dark red ones and touch every part of her curvaceous body. She’d royally screwed me over, and we hadn’t been together for five months. I guess that wasn’t long enough to kill the passion we’d shared for a year and a half.

Maybe trying to remain friends with her had been a dumb decision.

“Hey,” Violet greeted Karen. She grinned, her peachy skin aglow with mocking humor I could almost see slap Karen in the face.

“I’m going to go somewhere where I don’t have to listen to a fake bitch,” Karen said to me. She waited for a second to see if I would join her. When I didn’t make a move, Karen sulked away.

Violet watched Karen leave with spiteful glee. “Well, someone’s not very cheery today.”

“She has her reasons.”

“That no one cares about.” Before I could respond, Violet swept some of my hair behind my ear and rested her fingertips against my neck. “I like this color you’ve died your hair. Strawberry blonde suits you, and your dress is amazing. God, Ramona, you look truly breathtaking.”

She fed me a line and a lame one at that, but I blushed as if I’d never flirted before. I hated it, but I hoped she’d say more.

I shrugged like my palms weren’t sweating; like my heart and common sense weren’t waging a war I fooled myself into believing was settled every time I was alone but that started up again once in Violet’s presence. How did she have this power over me?

“I just have the talent,” I managed to say with a passable amount of competence.

“Oh, I know you have talents.” Violet trailed her fingers down my arm. They reached my hand and grasped it. “It’s a pity we called it quits. You really got me going right now.” She flashed me her sexiest smile. “How about we get out of here and find an abandoned tool shed or something and have a little fun…for old time’s sake?”

Her words stung like a wet towel snapped across my back and my sinuses burned with tears. There wouldn’t have to be an ‘old time’s sake’ if you weren’t a cheating slut, I wished I had the courage to say; the courage to knock her off her smug pedestal. Maybe then she’d express actual remorse for what she’d done to me.

She’d been my first love, and I had given her my virginity and had suffered through daily humiliation because I’d believed I’d found my soul mate in Violet Lamper. What had come of it in the end? Nothing but a broken heart and unbearable self-consciousness.

What made it all ten times worse was it seemed Violet enjoyed watching my struggle for a sense of normalcy.

“It’s almost time for cake,” was all I ended up saying.

Yup, my inner voice said as I swallowed my tears, you’re a pathetic coward. You have no backbone. You deserve everything you get.

“Can’t that wait?” Violet lost some of her charm as her tone grew unstable.

“Ramona! Karen!” my dad’s voice suddenly cried over the noise in the room. “Come over here.”

“Your cake,” Karen’s mom added.

I turned around to see the pair standing at one end of the food table. All the food had been pushed back to make space for a large pale pink box. My face split into a grateful smile, and I sent a silent prayer of thanks to God.

“I got to go,” I called to Violet as I raced across the floor, away from the painful spell she’d cast.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Karen slink away from the throng of bodies and fall in step beside me. She kept her head straight ahead, determined to make me regret choosing Violet over her.

Couldn’t she tell I did?

Mrs. Holm pointed at the spot between her and my dad. “Here, girls.”

Karen and I slid into place beside our parents. My dad squeezed my shoulder just before Mrs. Holm threw back the lid to the box. Karen and I peered inside, and both our breaths caught.

The cake was split down the middle, the left side a picture of a creepy, life-like zombie rising from its grave in a deserted cemetery with ‘Congratulations, Karen!’ sprawled across the lonely tombstone. The right was a hand-painted image set on a pale blue icing backdrop of L from Death Note sitting in a chair, curled into his uncomfortable-looking sitting position with a Death Note opened in his lap that clearly said, ‘Congratulations, Ramona Beish. 1:30 p.m.’.

Karen and I turned towards each other and squealed.

Mrs. Holm laughed. “I think they like it.”

“They had better.” My dad tweaked my nose when I looked back at him. “No expense was spared.”

“It’s awesome!” I cried

I threw my arms around my dad and gave him a tight hug, which he returned with a bone-crushing grip. I didn’t mind that it was suddenly hard to breathe. It just wasn’t that important compared to the love that gushed out of my dad. Love that, at least for a moment, I didn’t have to share with a single soul.

“How much was it?”

Karen’s thin words captured my attention, and I stepped out of my dad’s embrace to see what occurred.

“That’s not your business,” Mrs. Holm told Karen.

Her face turned cherry red as her cardboard brown eyes flitted about the room. A few guests looked our way, probably curious when they’d get a piece of cake, but none were close enough to hear the conversation. That didn’t stop Mrs. Holm’s mouth from creasing with embarrassment.

“Where did you get it from?” Karen asked, her voice raised a few octaves.

My eyes widened. How could Karen be so rude to her mom? Didn’t she care that her mom looked like she wanted to stick her head through the wooden floor to escape this shameful confrontation?

“I think we should try our cake. It’s probably delicious,” I suggested without much enthusiasm or force.

Karen acted like I hadn’t spoken. “Mom, where did you get the money?”

“Karen, it was only right that he helped out,” Mrs. Holm whispered.

“That asshole bought this?” Karen cried, and the entire room quieted.

The blood drained from Mrs. Holm’s face, and she got that wretched deer-in-the-headlights expression.

My dad made to touch Karen’s arm. “Maybe this is better discussed in the kitchen.”

She jerked away from him and took a step closer to her mom. “I can’t believe you’d let him do that. Don’t you have any pride, any self-respect?”

Mrs. Holm shoved her hands to her face. “Karen!”

“This—you—ah!” Karen all but screamed. She ran from the room and out the door that led outside. She disappeared into the surrounding woods.

Everyone watched with disbelief; some bounced their heads back and forth between Mrs. Holm and the door Karen had used for her exit. In the crowd, I spotted Violet and the delight that danced in her neon green eyes sickened me.

I looked away from her to Karen’s mom. The small, thin woman’s chest heaved, and she sounded close to drowning in her misery. She shouldn’t be on display like this. I didn’t know exactly how to get her to safety, but I elbowed my dad and gestured toward her. He had to have some sort of idea of how to handle this.

My dad coughed. “Er…Jillian?”

Mrs. Holm didn’t respond, but that didn’t stop my dad from wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He guided her to the women’s bathroom.

They vanished from sight, and the awkward tension they left in their departure was close to ending the celebration. A lot of people glanced around, no doubt searching for their coats and purses. If everyone took off, it would make the rest of the day even worse for Karen and her mom, but how did I stop them? Would they even take notice of a clueless eighteen-year-old?