The timing of things couldn’t have been more perfect. There was no better prey than the ripe adolescent in the tumult of heartbreak. None more vulnerable.

Or delicious.

From across the table, behind a thick fringe of bangs, over the prattling of her friend at her elbow, Marguerite caught it all. Hopeful start to painful finish. She watched the boy’s crooked smile drop, his oval face pale, fascinated by the deepening flecks of peach and rose where the freckles speckled densely across his cheekbones and forehead. Sean’s voice was too quiet to hear anything distinct, but his disappointment was delightfully clear.

He turned away, hanging up the phone, and the show ended. Marguerite went back to forking her spaghetti with violent intent; stabbing and twisting while her tongue worked the grooves across the back of all of her rows of teeth.