For Love or Money - Tara Brown Page 0,1

the Botox in a bottle stuff that makes your lips fatter? My aunt had it flown in for me.”

I smear lipstick across my bottom lip and dab the pout perfecter in the center and wink at her. “God was laughing that day. That guy had a perfect six pack and hockey-player ass.”

Nance points at the mirror. “Hockey-player ass IS a real thing. I was telling Darcy about it the other day and she was all like ‘no way’ and I was like ‘yeah.’ It’s a real thing. Have you seen Georgia Collins’ brother? He plays at Notre Dame and his ass is epic. He’s like Nikki Minaj but a dude. I want to squeeze it like I’m juicing a grapefruit.”

I freeze, mid-smudging of my pout and give her a disturbed look. She laughs but I know she means it. She wants to squeeze his ass cheeks.

Creepy.

“Anyway, that Botox in a bottle is super sweet. I need more. This crap I bought last week at the mall is making my lips peel and they don’t even really tingle. Why am I cursed with skinny lips? Why does God hate me?”

I roll my blue-gray eyes at her in the mirror. “You have a sweet ass so you get skinny lips.”

She moans like I told her I was cutting up her credit cards. “I guess. If it helps to stop kids being hungry everywhere, I can be the balance and have skinny lips.” She dabs the pout perfecter on her lips and scowls. “Still seems unfair though.”

I run my hands through my dark-blonde hair. “Unfair is how fast this shit is getting greasy.”

“Dry shampoo. It changed my life.”

I cock an eyebrow at her reflection. “What?”

She yawns and walks to the bathroom door. “Yeah, stops the grease.”

“Hmm.” I pull my cell phone from my pocket and text the desperate need I have for dry shampoo. Henry will have his butt at the store getting me some of that. We walk out of the bathroom, and I swear the ugly kid in my history class gives me a look, like an ‘I want you’ look. I sneer at Lana. “Did you see that? That weird kid, who never wears deodorant, just gave me the ‘wanna do it’ look. Like, as if.”

She makes a face and looks back through the hall for him. “Creepy little stalker. Why doesn’t he wear deodorant? Like is it a protest? He’s probably one of those earth-science weirdos. He smells rotten. I have art history with him and he is always smelling up whatever corner he’s in.” She blows me a kiss and leaves the building to trek across the cold-ass grounds to her next class while I go back to my room for my nap.

When I get there, I close the blinds and take my new sleep aid that I got for myself from a friend last week. The old one wasn’t working as well. The thought brings back the argument Henry and I got into over my ‘addiction’ to sleeping pills when he brought the new ones he said were less addictive. I roll my eyes and settle in with my mask and click my remote to start the soothing sounds of the beach in front of my dad’s place in Malibu. It’s the only thing that can lull me into a restful sleep.

The feel of the ocean starts to become part of my dream—I’m rocking with the waves. The room is transformed and peaceful, with its soft sounds and swaying bed.

A grunt finds its way into my dream, startling me. I look up and down the beach but there is nothing that would grunt.

The effects of the sleep aid try to hold me in my dream as my feet start sinking into the warm sand. At first they’re being lapped at by the tepid waves, but then a second grunt startles me to the point I can feel my lashes blinking against the mask covering my eyes. I know I’m dreaming which means I’m waking up and the grunting is real. It makes me panic, trying to see where the grunt is coming from. My lashes scratch at the satin, desperate to open completely, but the thick fog of the sleep aid has me in its clutches. My toes on my right foot get caught in the sand and something grabs them as my dream drifts into a nightmare.

I tug to free my foot, but the sand has it and it’s not letting go. My body jerks with