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I open the door to my Jeep and toss my bag into the back. Beth. That’s what happened, but I can’t tell Chris that. I’m ending my losing streak tomorrow when the rain moves out and Beth comes with me to the party.
“Maybe he’ll tell me. ” Standing next to
Chris, Lacy looks like a drowned rat with her hair plastered to her face. When the rain began an hour ago, she sought shelter in Chris’s car.
“Take me home, Ryan. ”
The last thing I want is to be trapped in a car with her. “I’m not your boyfriend. ”
“No,” she yells as another clap of thunder vibrates in the sky. “You’re my friend. ”
Lacy kisses Chris’s cheek and runs to the passenger side. I glance at Chris and he nods.
“She doesn’t want to be mad at you anymore. ”
I hop into the Jeep and start it up. In Lacy-like style, she goes to work turning on the heat and switching the radio to her favorite country station before lowering the sound. “Did you and Beth have a fight?”
The windshield wipers whine at a fast rate as I pull out of the parking lot. I wonder what Lacy knows. I didn’t tell anyone that Beth and I went into Louisville. “Is that what she said?”
“No. I finally scored her home number the other week and her uncle told me you guys were out. ”
I calculate how this affects the dare. “Did you tell Chris?”
“It’s not my business to tell. Did you take her into Louisville because of the dare?”
“Yes. ”
“So the dare’s done. That’s why you’ve been ignoring her?”
Silence. Why is Lacy making me feel like a dick? Beth’s the one that screwed me over. She owes me this. “She treats you like crap, Lace. Why do you care?”
Lacy doesn’t live far from the community ballpark. I ease into her drive and watch the hanging ferns on the front porch blowing in the wind.
“She was my friend. ”
“Was! She was…”
Lacy holds both her hands out. “Stop. Listen to me. I’m not you. I’ve never been you. You walk into any situation and it’s automatically perfect. I’m not perfect. I never have been. ”
What is she talking about? If Lace only knew how broken my family is; how since Mark left we’re slowing dying. “I’m not perfect. ”
“Will you shut up?! God, I can’t get you guys to say crap half the time and then anytime I try to actually SAY something worth saying, one of you interrupts me. So shut up!”
I gesture with my hand for her to continue.
“No one liked me, Ryan. Daddy moved us to Groveton when I was four and I knew then nobody liked me. My mom tried playdate after playdate and put me in preschool and no matter what, I was considered the outsider. I’m not you. I’m not Logan. I’m not Chris. I can’t trace my roots to the founding fathers. I can’t eat Sunday chicken with my grandma after church because she doesn’t live on the next property over, but three states away. ”
I rub the back of my head, unsure if I should speak and if I do, what to say. Lacy never seemed to care what people thought of her.
“We never treated you different. ”
She sighs heavily. “Why do you think I’ve hung out with you since sixth grade? Do you think I love baseball that much?”
I chuckle. “Don’t let Chris hear you say you aren’t a diehard fan. ”
“I love him,” she says, and I understand that means that she also loves anything he loves.
“Anyway, the whole point is, Beth liked me. When Gwen was mean to me…”
