bad girlfriend (B&S intermission book 5.5), part 2 of 7

December 2088. Lou Corelli is 29, Jamie Pendleton is 30, Maria Boone is 26, Johanna is 4, Felix and Milo Graham are 9.








“Jess asked me what I’m doing with my place today,” Jamie said. Lou didn’t pause her typing to answer, “Why do you have to do anything with it?”

Jamie let out a small sigh. You will never get a proposal from this woman, she thought, and it was probably why she kept holding onto that apartment. “Since I’m hardly there. She wants to know if I want to rent it out to them. Like, officially.”

“Them? As in, they’re moving in together?”



Jamie shrugged. “It’s not so surprising. They’ve been dating over a year now.”

“Dating.” Lou snickered. “Remember all the months they made us keep it a secret? Ian-fucking-Thompson? It’s just so weird. We’ve known him since we were kids.”

“We’ve known each other since we were kids. How is it different?”

bad girlfriend (B&S intermission book 5.5), part 1 of 7

19 years ago // 14 years ago // Lou, Maria.  

It was the spring of 2068, the year Maria was six and Lou was nine, the year they both decided they would drag their over-sized stuffie everywhere. Even, to their parents dismay, all the way to North Carolina on the family’s spring break trip to the Smokey Mountains.

Neither of them knew a lot about love that year, but they knew they loved Pixel. Lou hugged it enthusiastically, then kissed its furry head.

Maria was confused. “Did you just kiss a bear? Are you gonna marry him?”

“Pixel is a girl, and she’s not a bear,” Lou said.

“What is she then?”

“I don’t know, maybe a goat. Or a monster. She has a tree growing out of her head.”

Maria pursed her lips. “I don’t think you can marry a monster.”

“Duh, you can’t marry a goat, either!” Lou shrugged. “Then maybe I won’t marry anybody.”