Sublime

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.

Madison, because it sounds enough like my own surname to make me turn around, and Lexie because when I was a kid that was the name of my imaginary sister.

In her oversized pink pullover, green checkered leggings, and yellow sneakers,

Her eyes were bright and kind, her skin the deepest, warmest brown,

I peek through my fingers at Layla. She’s smiling a smug little grin. She looks like she should be wearing a monocle and stroking a hairless cat Bond-style. Why I ever thought she was all sweetness is beyond me. She’s a spicy little thing. “Ask Luka.”

An aunt stayed on hoping to curry favor with my mother and named me Hawk, Circe, for my yellow eyes, and the strange, thin sound of my crying.