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e life to make it so he never disappointed me? Not West.
I don’t want anyone but West.
I’d rather fuck up and have something—some messy undefinable not-quite-relationship that feels awful but also transcendent, electric, important—than keep away from him and have nothing at all.
I’m going to figure out a way to get him back. Everyone can think I’m stupid if they want to, and tell me I shouldn’t, and say I’ll regret it. Everyone can believe it’s a bad idea—even me.
Maybe it is a bad idea.
I don’t care. I’m doing it anyway.
My phone rings at the library that same afternoon, drawing nasty looks. It’s four o’clock, a quiet time for serious study, and I forgot to set it on vibrate.
I fumble in my bag until I find it way down in the pocket where I don’t usually put it, and by then it’s been ringing so long I’m hot with embarrassment. I decline the call, a local number I don’t recognize, and go back to my response paper.
A minute later, the phone starts to vibrate in my pocket, and I feel … I don’t know. Weird.
Weird like the hair is standing up on the back of my neck.
Weird like when people say they just have a feeling. That déjà vu thing.
I accept the call, shutting my laptop and shoving it in my bag.
“Ms. Pia … Pia …”
“Piasecki,” I say.
“This is Jeff Gorham. I’m the counselor at Putnam Elementary, and I have Frankie Leavitt here needing a ride home. I haven’t been able to reach her brother. I’ve got you listed as an emergency contact on the ride form, is that right?”
I have no idea. But as I push out the library door and into the overcast fall afternoon, I say, “Uh, yeah. Did you try his cell?”
“Frankie did.”
I hear a garbled voice on the other end of the line, and then the counselor again. “Would you be able to swing by and pick her up?”
I glance at my watch. I have a meeting in an hour, but the elementary school isn’t far. “Sure. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
My car is parked on the east side of campus. I find myself rushing to get to it. Jogging, impatient, freaked out. Those words—emergency contact—set off some kind of alarm in the back of my brain.
Plus, you know, the obvious thing. West.
He must have put my name down on that form, but I bet he hated doing it.
I bet he’s going to hate this even more.
When I pull up outside the school, Frankie’s sitting on the steps with a guy who looks young enough to be a Putnam student. I step out of the car, wave in her direction, and wait to see if they’re going to beckon me over. I don’t know what kind of rules govern who gets to pick up a ten-year-old from a public school.
I guess all Frankie has to do is tell him I’m the one she’s been waiting on, because in a second she’s free. She walks to my car with her head down. When she gets in, her backpack hits the wheel well with a heavy thump.
“Sorry,” she says, before we’ve even pulled away from the curb. “I missed the bus. I didn’t know Mr. Gorham would call you.”
“That’s all right,” I say. “Where should I take you?”
“Home, I guess.”
“Which is …?”
She points straight ahead. “That way.”
