Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

chest, watching me like something that’s already his.
Maybe. I’ll look good on his arm at the debutante ball, nevertheless.
I swipe my water bottle out from underneath the papier-mâché clown fish
and take a swig, the burn already intoxicating as it courses down my throat.
Just the taste eases my nerves.
“I’m going to kill him,” Krisjen gripes.
“Wait until after the ball,” I tell her. “You need a date.”
Taking the bottle out of my hands, she throws back a swallow as I grab
her shirts and toss them to waiting hands.
Music and laughter surround us, the confetti gun shoots another bomb
into the air—blue, pink, silver, and gold—fluttering like snow.
“God, that stuff is good.” She hands me the bottle back. “Goes down like
water.”
“As long as you don’t drink sixty-four ounces of this a day, got it?” I
down another swallow and cap my new favorite brand of vodka, disguised in
my Evian bottle.
She scrunches up her face in a smile, her apple cheeks perfect and her
long, chestnut hair in a messy bun on the top of her head. “What would I do
without you?”
I chuckle. “The only thing any of us need is a little love…” I lean in,
whispering, “from the right bottle.”
She laughs, and we both hop down from the float, leaving Amy to man it,
while we join the girls in the last chorus of the dance.
My head floats a few feet above my neck, the ‘help’ we just drank giving
me just the right buzz that I’d sweat off in twenty minutes, but enough to put
a spring in my step.
I’m so late. This parade is taking so much longer than I’d hoped, and
Lavinia’s will close soon. I dance faster as if that’ll speed up the vehicles in
front of us.
Callum and Milo follow, Callum’s dark blonde hair blowing in the breeze
as I step and tease him with my eyes. Little girls cheer us on, looking up at
me like I’m something special, while a couple guys hover close together,
staring at me and whispering between them.
I move in ways our facilitator will certainly hear about on Monday, but I
don’t care. I rub in their face something they’ll never get.
Because even at twelve, strutting down a pageant stage in a bikini, I knew
what my power was. There’s never been any confusion.