“What did you get, do you remember?”
“Mac n’ cheese, probably,” I say. “I always got the mac n’ cheese at restaurants with my dad. Mom always made me eat vegetables or protein with it, but my dad ordered a side of fries. And he got me ice cream. We watched the Sabres-Bruins game. Sabres won.”
My voice cracks as the memory turns sour. Ollie probably thinks it’s a different kind of emotion.
“That’s nice,” he says.
I snort bitterly. “It would have been if my dad hadn’t bet a few grand on the Bruins. He complained the whole drive home.”
I can feel Ollie’s frown.
“He told you he’d bet on the game?”
I should shut this down. Laugh it off. I really should. “Not in so many words,” I say. “Hindsight made it a lot clearer.”
Silence fills the car. I can feel him thinking, piecing it together. He’s smart enough to read between the lines, but he’s also closed enough to read in his head, not uttering a single syllable out loud. He’s going to change the subject—I know it. Even though my heart is screamingtalk to me! Ask me something! Anything!
Ollie leans back in his seat and stuffs his hands in his dark red hoodie.
“That’s messed up.”
I peek at him, seeing anger on his brow and the set of his jaw. Anger on my behalf, I realize. When was the last time someone felt defensive for me? I choke on a laugh that feels like a sob.
“I’m not trying to pry,” he says, and I feel that hope of conversation—connection—wither like the dead cactus in my apartment.
Of course he’s not going to pry. No one ever does. Not with me.
A cactus is an easy plant to keep alive. In the winter, it only needs to be watered once a month.
I haven’t been watered in a lot longer than that.
My throat aches from holding back emotion. I swallow hard, trying to hold the feelings at bay, trying to keep the despair and hurt from pouring out.
It’s been a hard couple of weeks.
Following a hard decade and a half, honestly.
But I’m stronger than a cactus.
I have to be.
The wipers make a rhythmic swish against the windshield, and coupled with the angry wind outside, the car is so loud, I almost miss Ollie’s voice.
Then he says, “Can I ask about your dad?”
The emotion in my throat swells up to my nose and eyes, burning brightly. I’ve been waiting for Arrow to ask for months, but this is better than nothing. The urge to blurtYes!fills me. I barely know Ollie—which might be the point. After we drop the car off in Rochester, we’ll probably never see each other again.
That thought isn’t as comforting as it was a few hours ago.
Maybe that’s why I nod. “Sure. Ask me anything.”
CHAPTER NINE
FLETCH
Poppy looks ghostly pale in the dashboard lights. The storm has made the sky nonexistent. The only pinpoints of light in the dark come from the snow in the headlights.
“When I was eleven, my mom and I found out that my dad had a gambling addiction and had racked up hundreds of thousands in debt. He’d forged a loan application to cover it,” Poppy says.
