AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You can’t know that.”
“If I report it, he’ll say I’m making it up, and she’ll take his side. Then he’ll turn it into a thing where I have a crush on him and I’m just trying to get attention.”
I wrinkle my nose. We never moved to a new town, but I remember how kids who came to our school from outside the state might as well have arrived from another planet. They had different slang words, accented different syllables. Sometimes they had toys or games we didn’t know about, or they wore a brand of jeans we’d never seen before, and these contrasts seemed enormous.
“Did you talk to West about it?”
She shakes her head. “He’s mad at me.”
“What for?”
“He just is. He acts mad all the time, but like he doesn’t want me to know. It’s my fault we had to move here.”
“I thought you moved so he could come to school.”
She shakes her head again, but she doesn’t say anything.
I don’t know what to tell her. The silence lasts half a minute. There aren’t any crickets chirping. The night’s cool. Summer’s over.
I look at her with her hand on the door handle, her hair in her eyes.
This kid.
The thing is, I love this kid. Not the way West does, but my own way, because she’s so young and sweet. Because she tries so hard to be tough, and because her mouth and her stubborn jaw are the same as her brother’s.
I reach out to touch her arm. “When you just can’t, call me. I’ll come get you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“West won’t like it.”
“That’s his problem. If he doesn’t like it, he can talk to me, okay?”
She smiles slightly. “It was fun tonight.”
“It was.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
The door slams behind her. I watch her climb the steps to the apartment, fish a key out of her backpack, go inside.
I know she’s right. West isn’t going to like it. But I sit there watching her shut herself into her empty apartment, and the hair stands up on my forearms.
I’m so looking forward to it.
Every time my phone buzzes after that night, I think it must be West.
Usually, it’s Frankie.
Frankie, wanting me to see the earrings she bought on a recent trip to Walmart.
Frankie, wondering whether she should be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz or Catwoman for Halloween.
Frankie saying, hey whats up?
