The Dysasters

by P. C. Cast

  Sabine reached up and squeezed his hand. “We’ll offer you the same thing we did Cora—our word.”

  Foster ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth and thought about what Finn and Sabine had said. Cora trusted them. But did Foster really believe that? And if Cora trusted them then Foster should, too, right? But without asking any questions? This wasn’t like the letter Cora had left that, what they could read of it, detailed, at the very least, something way too suspicious to overlook and at the opposite end something that could end up getting her, Tate, and six other people killed. This was a guy Cora hired and his maybe girlfriend possibly using Cora’s name to gain her trust.

  Foster crossed her arms over her chest. “Sabine, I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  Sabine’s braids brushed her triceps as she nodded stiffly.

  “We’ll be back,” Foster called over her shoulder to Tate and Finn as she led Sabine closer to the tree line.

  “We’ll, uh, be here.” She didn’t have to look back to know that the two of them were still standing there awkwardly staring at each other.

  Out of earshot from the guys, Foster asked, “What happened between you and Cora? How did she help you?”

  Now it was Sabine’s turn to cross her arms over her chest. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “This is too important, and I’m not the sugarcoating type.”

  “Neither was Cora.”

  Foster swallowed.

  “I was pregnant,” Sabine blurted after a long pause. “Now I’m not.”

  Foster shook her head, confused. “Isn’t that usually how it goes?”

  “In this country, the babies usually survive.”

  There was another long, stomach-clenching pause.

  “But Cora … she…” Sabine’s voice didn’t waver as tears shined against her cheeks. “She made sure our baby had a fighting chance. And Cora was there with us in the end—holding her with us—helping us say good-bye.”

  “I’m sorry…” Foster trailed off, the words seeming meaningless and hollow as an offering to ease such despair.

  “Me too,” Sabine whispered. “And about Cora. I loved her.”

  “I loved her too” wasn’t big enough to contain the way Foster felt about her mother, so she said nothing and let the tears fall.

  There was a whole part of Cora’s story that Foster didn’t know. That she would never know. But Foster had figured out one part—that her Cora truly did care about and trust Sabine and Finn the same way she had with Foster’s biological parents and all the other parents she’d sat awake with and comforted as their babies fought for life, and sometimes lost that fight.

  Cora had witnessed the hardest and worst part of Sabine and Finn’s life. A time that could have infected them, growing as dark and toxic as black mold. Instead, Cora had trusted them with Foster’s life and Tate’s. In Foster’s eyes, that was the highest stamp of approval a person could ever obtain.

  She dabbed her cheeks with the sleeves of her shirt and stepped closer to Sabine. “Would you like a s’more? They’re the peace food of my people.”

  Sabine’s purple-painted lips parted in the beginnings of a smile. “And what people would those be?” she asked, brushing tears from under her eyes.

  Foster sniffled away the last remnants of her current sadness. Cora would be proud of her for making such a grand attempt at acquiring a friend. “Redheaded introverts who might sometimes be mistaken for being semi-bitchy.”

  “Hmm.” Sabine’s full smile was dazzling. “Can’t say I’ve ever had a fellow introvert invite me to do anything in real life, but there’s a first time for everything.”

  And Sabine couldn’t be more correct. About both points. Foster couldn’t think of the last time she’d asked someone who wasn’t Cora to do something. She’d asked a lot of people to go away or stop talking or leave her alone, but she was pretty positive that wasn’t the same thing. And this wasn’t just a regular Hey want to grab a coffee? Or go to Powell’s? Or go silently judge people in yoga? No. This was huge. This was s’mores. She’d yelled at Tate for eating naked graham crackers and couldn’t even bring herself to open the bag of marshmallows much less roast one and make it into a dessert sandwich, but Sabine and Finn and Foster and Tate had been through so much—had lost so much. Maybe this new friendship, this new family, could be the silver lining of all that pain.

  “Then let our s’mores be in honor of new beginnings,” Foster paused. “And telling new friends the truth instead of erasing their memories.”

  17

  FOSTER

  Between her fingers, Sabine twirled and untwirled one of her long, thick braids while narrowing her upturned eyes at Foster. “You’re avoiding.”

  “I’m not avoiding.” Foster piled a bag of chocolate chips atop an unopened bag of flour before closing the pantry door. “Can’t a woman just want some cookies?” she asked, setting the items on the kitchen counter.

  Sabine remained silent and Foster’s defenses rose as Sabine’s deep fall leaf–brown gaze continued to bore into her. “You can’t still be mad at me for trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to Jedi mind trick Finn. For one, that was all the way in yesterday, and two, when you got out of class today you immediately came over with Finn and brought me scones. That doesn’t scream I’m still mad at you. That says, Hey, we can totally be friends. Plus, I’m making cookies. Friendship pastries galore!”

  “I know.” Sabine pursed her plump lips. “And that last point was two things.”

  Foster pawed through the Tupperware cabinet until she found a large mixing bowl. She set it on the counter and tried to remember in which drawer she’d seen the measuring cups.

  Sabine was still looking at her. She could feel it. Sabine’s gaze of judgment clung to her, hanging suffocatingly heavy in the air around her like humidity. “Then what?” Foster said, no longer able to ignore Judgy McJudgerson.

  Sabine’s braids rested on the table as she tilted her head. “What?”

  “You keep looking at me like you have something to say, so just say it.” Foster opened the spice cabinet a little too forcefully.

  Sabine flipped her hair over her shoulder and shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Okay, but if you don’t stop staring at me like I’m an alien, you’re not getting any cookies. I’m hoarding them all for myself.” Foster turned the bag of chocolate chips over so the recipe was faceup. She read the instructions five times and still hadn’t registered what the short, numbered sentences wanted her to do. Was this what it would be like with anyone who found out what she was capable of? She shook her head. Maybe if she just carried on like nothing major had happened, Sabine would, too.

  “This says baking soda,” Foster lifted onto her tiptoes and peered into the cabinet. “But we only have baking powder.” She removed the tin from the shelf, popped the lid, and jiggled the round canister. “They look the same.” She offered it to Sabine. “Do you think there’s really a difference?”

  “Foster, I don’t think you’re an alien, but I’m starting to think that you might be blind.”

  Foster squinted at the can. “They seriously look the same. They’re both white powders.”

  Sabine sighed. “Not that. But yes, you can use baking powder instead of baking soda. The texture might be a little different but—” she sighed again. “God, girl, now you’ve got me talking about cookies.” Yet another sigh, this one far more annoyed sounding than the first two. “You do realize that he’s cute, right?”

  Foster set the baking powder next to the bowl and closed the cabinet. “Who?”

  “Who?” Sabine’s eyebrows practically rocketed into her hairline. “Tate! That’s who.”

  Tate? Foster thought, tearing open the corner of the bag of chocolate chips. No way. He was goofy and tall and sort of reminded her of Clark Kent, who just happened to be the boy-next-door version of her favorite superhero of all time, what with his dark hair and strong bone structure and Midwesternness—oh my god. She crammed a ha
ndful of chocolate into her mouth. “I guess,” she said, around the melting sugary mass.

  “You guess?”

  Foster swallowed. “Yes, Polly, I guess.”

  Sabine blinked up at her.

  “She’s a parrot,” Foster offered.

  Sabine’s perfectly manicured brow wrinkled. “Now that’s one bird Finn does not own.”

  “No, because you keep repeating me,” Foster sighed. “Never mind. My point is that I guess I noticed that maybe Tate is a little on the cute side.”

  If a little cute means that last night I might have accidentally on purpose positioned myself to see him come out of the bathroom right after he finished showering, then yes, he’s definitely a little cute. Her cheeks heated with the memory of his muscular wet torso, towel-clad waist, and that silly, smiley wave he’d given her while blushing himself.

  But Foster kept that part to herself. After all, it was only that one time.

  Sabine snorted.

  “What?” Foster tensed, afraid that she might have admitted aloud her vaguely pervy, stalker-like behavior.

  It was just the one time! she practically shouted at herself.

  “You know that boy is fine.” Foster opened her mouth to object, but Sabine held up her slender, perfectly manicured finger, shushing Foster until she’d finished. “And I can tell you know how fine he is,” she continued with a tilt of her head. “Because, right now, your cheeks are as red as your hair.”

  Foster clapped her hands over her traitorous cheeks. “They are not!” she exclaimed, trying to keep from spilling chocolate chips all over the floor.

  “You are lying.” The last word came out more in song than statement.

  “Am not.” Foster poured another mound of chocolate into her hand before dumping it into her mouth. At this rate, her cookies would just be batter.

  “You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.”

  Foster sank into the chair opposite Sabine. If she was being honest, Foster spent quite a bit of time thinking about Tate and his stupid, gorgeous face and how nice he was even when she was being horrible. She’d even sighed aloud on more than one occasion when she’d innocently, accidentally, in no way on purpose stared at him while he was out shirtless in the pasture. “Apparently I can’t lie to myself, either.”

  “I knew it,” Sabine said with a clap. “I just knew it!”

  “Wait. You set me up? You didn’t actually know how I felt about Tate. You were fishing.”

  Sabine held up her hands. “Before you spin off into one of your defensive, ‘I don’t need anybody I can do this by myself’ tantrum things, I have a plan.”

  “I don’t have tantrums.”

  “I have heard many a story.” Arching her brow, Sabine blinked slowly. “Self-reflection isn’t really your thing, is it?”

  “Shut up!” Foster exclaimed in a burst of laughter.

  “So, you want to hear my idea?”

  Foster nodded listlessly before eyeing the opened bag of chocolates and wishing she’d never put them down.

  “There’s this place, Bella Farms, just down the main street from here, and every Friday night they have dancing and food and general jubilance.” Her pointed fingernails clicked against the table in an unidentifiable rhythm. “And today happens to be Friday, so we should go.”

  Click, click.

  “All of us.”

  Click, click. Click, click, click.

  “On a double date.”

  Click. Click, click.

  “Ask Tate to go with you.”

  “Ask Tate to go out with me? On a date?”

  “A double date. That way you can more easily explore this uncharted territory.”

  Easy? Nothing about going on a date sounded easy. Foster had only been on one. With Ronald Watson at space camp when she was fifteen, and, yes, it was absolutely as horrible as it sounded. It was at that same camp with that same boy that she’d lost her virginity. And yes, that was also as horrible as it sounded.

  Foster cringed.

  “A date?” She felt like her stomach was dangerously close to falling out of her butt. “We … we can’t go out tonight.”

  “Oh, because you have to wake up so early to get to class. Or is it work, maybe? The two of you are so busy with all of your extracurriculars it’s hard to keep your schedules straight.”

  Defeated, Foster leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “You know, this is why I usually don’t have any friends.”

  Sabine resumed twirling her braids. “You’re welcome.”

  * * *

  Foster was ready. She’d even done her hair. Okay, that was a lie. She’d sprayed a considerable amount (half a bottle) of dry shampoo into her hair before brushing it. But she was wearing a clean, she paused to sniff the armpits of her top, yes, a clean flannel over the sunflower yellow cotton dress she’d found shoved into the back of her closet.

  “Wear something that shows your legs and isn’t frayed or torn or wrinkled.” Sabine had paused on the porch with further instructions before leaving to collect Finn and force him to shower before their impromptu double date.

  Mentally, Foster scanned her closet. “So, pretty much tear down the drapes and make a brand-new wardrobe in the next hour.”

  Sabine had poked her head back into the foyer, craning her neck to eye the kitchen’s checkered window treatments, a deep dimple appearing beneath her right cheek as she smiled. “You better get to sewing.”

  Foster almost had to until she’d found the dress that Cora had obviously bought for her since it was girly and pretty and not flannel.

  Maybe she should go all the way, try something completely different and get out of the security blanket disguised as a long-sleeve button-down. She shrugged out of the top and let it pool around her feet. “I actually have arms.” She chuckled nervously before smoothing her palms down the wrinkleless, unmarred cotton. “And this is way better than curtains.” She rose onto her tiptoes and turned her back to the mirror. Looking over her shoulder, she narrowed her gaze to her butt and stretched the flowing skirt firmly against her very large and very comfortable leopard-spotted panties.

  She nodded to herself. Giant underpants completely hidden.

  Even though it was their first date, gulp, and Foster had shaved her legs for the first time in … she squinted up at the ceiling as if her memories were packed away in the attic. She shrugged. Well, she’d shaved for the first time in far too long, but that didn’t mean that she wanted Tate to see her panties through her dress as if she was luring him out of the friend zone with her jungle cat–spotted ass.

  Goose bumps popped to life across her arms and her heart fluttered a little too quickly within her chest. What if Tate only wanted to be friends? He was good at that—being friends—but what if that was as far as their relationship would ever go? And what if he had a girlfriend back in Missouri? Had she even thought to ask? No. Foster hardly ever asked him anything about how his life was before she’d spun into it and sucked him up and away to Oregon. Sure, they talked, but was she ever really saying anything or was she just going on and on about stuff that didn’t really matter in order to avoid talking about anything that did actually matter? And what if she asked him out and he said yes and they had a horrible time and ended up ruining their friendship forever?

  Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. This is a mistake. A gigantic mistake.

  Worry pitted Foster’s stomach.

  I bet if I ripped off this dress and ran downstairs in nothing but my leopard boy shorts and T-shirt bra that Tate would just look at me with those obnoxiously gorgeous blue eyes and smile with those stupid perfect teeth and then just go on talking about how much he likes to listen to the chickens cluck or something else really sickeningly charming.

  This was one of those times when Foster really hated not having a phone. She wanted nothing more than to text Sabine in all caps to let her know how mad she was that Sabine, her only friend, made her realize that she had some ridiculous tweenie
crush on the guy she had to spend the foreseeable future with.

  Thanks a lot, friend.

  “Foster?”

  Tate! When had he gotten home?

  Heavy footsteps clomped on the stairs leading up to her room.

  And he’s coming up here. Oh, god. Okay. Just breathe. She fluffed the ends of her hair and gave her armpits a final sniff. Of course he wants to go out with me. I mean, look at me. I’m pretty positive I’m attractive. And I’m nice enough. She shook her head. Okay, maybe I’m not super nice, but I’m nicer to Tate than I am to any other guy. Is that a redeeming quality?

  Tate knocked lightly against the door. “You in there?”

  Foster’s legs carried her to the door before her mind finished building a case as to why she should slip back into her sweatpants and pretend this whole date idea never happened.

  “Hi.” She opened the door, a gentle gust dancing in the soft waves of her hair as it wrapped around her chest and ever so gracefully twirled and lifted the ends of her skirt. Man, was she learning how to make an entrance.

  “Whoa. I—You—” Tate tugged at the neck of his shirt. “A dress.”

  Foster tilted her chin. “Thanks.” She grinned, deciding that a dress had to be short for you are amazing, and I don’t have a girlfriend back in Nowheresville, and I’d be honored to be your best friend and boyfriend.

  “So, are you busy, like,” Foster glanced at her wrist as if her freckles could somehow show her the time. “Nowish?”

  “No, no, definitely not. Finn said something about seeing me later, but I can tell him that I’m doing something else. I mean, if you want to, you know,” he coughed before clearing his throat. “Do something, or something.”

  Foster couldn’t help but blush. He was tripping all over himself, and not in his normal Tate-ish way. This was different. He was nervous. And that made two of them.