Free Matters of Circumstance by Ashley Andrews

sigh and kept running his hand through the valley between her folded, feeble wings through her hoodie. The action was unexpectedly soothing. “Your perspective is never going to change until you start actively trying to change it,” he said finally. “You start by mentioning me around your parents, and then maybe I’ll come over, and work on it from there. If I’m not the problem, then get me out of the way and work your way up to wings. I’m not going to lie, Farrah, until you start acting less ashamed of me I’m going to be bitter about it, and I’m not going to give it a rest.”
    Farrah really couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. She would be bitter, too—especially because this whole situation could have been avoided so easily.
     
    *****
    Sometimes Farrah really had to wonder just how Neal came to think that she was too trusting, because as far as she was concerned anything that looked even remotely out of place was something to be suspicious of.
    Overly-curious adults in a fairly notorious teen hotspot like Joe’s Joe, for example. Farrah had never seen them before, and neither had Shellie. Nancy was currently out running errands and getting her teeth bleached, but Farrah was willing to bet that this pair would be new to her, too. They just had that aura about them.
    “Shell,” Farrah murmured in between customers. “I really want to kick them out.”
    “They’re just making conversation with people, they aren’t doing anything wrong,” Shellie said in her usual monotone. It was hard to see what she was thinking through her body language, too, so Farrah shut up until she had some kind of concrete evidence to support her instinct.
    Technically, her co-worker was right. The pair (a man and a woman; they acted more like a couple than friends or business partners) were sitting on a table and asking innocent questions about the area. What were the highlights? The lowlights? Were there a lot of problems with crime, organized or otherwise? Did they as teens feel as if they had enough to do outside of school—and speaking of which, how was education in these parts?
    It sounded like they were considering moving here and starting a family. They were fairly young, too (as far as adults went), so it wasn’t as if such an idea would be unrealistic. Really, all Farrah had was a feeling. There was just something that made all of her mental alarms go crazy, and nobody else seemed to be picking up on it.
    Then again, she tried to reason as she went about making lattes and cappuccinos, considering her condition she was bound to be paranoid about some things that everybody else knew was harmless.
    Wouldn’t Neal be proud.
    Her peers and the adults went on talking for about a quarter of an hour more until the woman looked at the service counter and realized, “Oh! We’ve been using this place for this long and we haven’t even bought coffee!”
    The man did not protest, merely asked for an espresso Americano. The woman nodded and stood up, excusing herself to go and make the orders. She was very friendly about it, too, but something about her behavior made Farrah’s stomach clench. All of her senses were telling her not to get too close, and it was all she could do to keep her cool as she plastered a customer-service smile on her face and handed the woman her coffees.
    She thought that would be it, but then the woman’s expression changed to one of curiosity. “Excuse me, this probably sounds forward, but aren’t you hot in that sweater?”
    That question pretty much squelched any and all of her attempts to give the benefit of the doubt. This couple was not to be trusted.
    Farrah laughed lightly, as if she was asked that all the time. “Not at all, I have poor circulation,” she replied.
    In actuality she was a little on the warm side wearing her hoodie in the nicely heated coffee shop, but she knew it wasn’t bad enough for her to start sweating. It wasn’t hot enough for anyone but her to notice.
    The