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But I’m not at all sure it will. I look around, but I don’t see Grady anywhere, and that bothers me more than it should.
3
Grady
I hide behind the building, next to the dumpsters, until I see Evie leave with Little Robbie; presumably he is giving her a lift home. After I see that she’s gone, I walk back inside to see if I can use the payphone to call someone to pick me up.
Evie has a way of getting under my skin. When we were younger, our parents said we were joined at the hip. Then Evie grew breasts and I started to notice she had breasts and our relationship got real complicated real quick. Well, complicated for me. I don’t think it was complicated for Evie. She hated my guts by that point, and she has never really wavered from that stance. Instead, she planted her feet and stood strong, using all the will in her body to spew venom and hatred in my direction every damn time she saw me. And she has perfected her ability to spew hatred in my direction, mainly because she’s had a shit-ton of practice.
Evie’s hatred of me became a sport when we were fifteen. She had brought me a cookie at school, and she left it on my desk, wrapped neatly in a piece of wax paper. She hadn’t left a note or anything; she’d just left the cookie sitting in the middle of my desk in homeroom. The bad thing was that my friends at school saw the cookie before I did. And by the time I walked into the room, all the boys in the class were all agog over the cookie that had been left for me by a “secret admirer.”
I’d taken a lot of ribbing about my relationship with Evie over the years, but never quite as much as I took that day over the cookie.
Evie had sat, stone-faced, as I’d unwrapped it and looked down. I knew immediately who had left it for me because Evie made these cookies with her grandmother every Saturday morning. I’d eaten them many, many times, but I’d never had her leave one for me, not where everyone could see it. So when I opened that cookie up in front of everyone, someone asked me who left it. I glanced toward Evie and she gave me a tiny shake of her head. I’d denounced soundly any knowledge of who’d left the cookie, while Evie had looked on in silence.
“That’s about the ugliest cookie I’ve ever seen,” one of the boys said.
“I know,” I replied without even thinking. “It’s positively horrendous. Whoever left it must not like me very much.” A grin had tugged at my lips, but I’d bitten it back. I had always teased Evie about her ugly cookies because the ugliest ones always seemed to taste the best. So, to me, saying it was ugly was honoring that cookie. But when Evie heard me, her face had gone scarlet, and she’d let her hair fall down in front of her eyes as she stared down at the book in front of her. I tried many, many times that day to get her attention so I could properly thank her for the cookie, but she avoided me. She didn’t even save me a seat at lunch. Instead, she’d sat with Jelissa Saunders, and they had pointed and giggled at me all through lunch. And it wasn’t in a nice way. They were laughing at me. But I had no idea why.
That afternoon after school, I’d gone to Evie’s house to thank her for the cookie, but she refused to see me. And she has refused to see me every day since. After that, even my breathing got on her nerves. And I never could figure out why she stopped being my best friend. All I knew was that my best friend was now my worst enemy. Evie hated me with the fire of a thousand suns. I’d just learned to accept that her hatred for me was as normal as the sun coming up each day.
Until now. Now I refused to accept it any longer. Evie was going to either talk to me, or I was going to die trying to get her to talk to me. She’d probably enjoy the latter.
I borrow some change from the guy behind the reception desk at the police station and call my dad to get a ride back to Ms. Markie’s house, where my Jeep had been left last night. My dad answers with a quick “What up?”
“Dad.” I roll my eyes. “Can you come and pick me up?”
“Where are you?”
“Police station,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut, preparing for the verbal ass-kicking that I’m about to experience.
“Why are you at the police station?” he asks. His voice is deadly quiet. I can’t even hear him breathing, and I can always hear him breathing.
“I made a mistake, Dad,” I say in a big rush of breath. “I can explain if you’ll come and get me.”
“No can do, son,” he replies.
I lean my head against the cool concrete wall in front of me and I roll my forehead back and forth. “Why not?”
“You know the rules, son,” he replies. “If you get locked up, you got to get yourself out.”
“I didn’t get locked up,” I reply. Technically, that’s the truth. “I don’t need bail or anything.”
“I don’t need the details.” He huffs into the phone. “And I know what you did. I saw it on Jacobson’s building this morning. There it was staring at me as I drove past.” He grunts. “I told you to stay away from Evie Allen. Told you she would ruin your life if you kept on panting after her. Now look. She got you in trouble. I won’t even say I told you so.” Even though he just did. “See you later.” Then he hangs up on me.
I stare down at the receiver. I press the lever on the payphone, thinking there was a mistake. “Dad?” I say into the receiver.
The outer door to the police station opens and a little bell sounds off, so I look up to find Little Robbie staring at me. “I was wondering where you went,” he says, one eyebrow arched at me.
I look behind him, but I don’t see anyone. “Evie’s not with you, is she?”
He hitches his pants higher. “Dropped her off at Ms. Markie’s house.” He stares at me. “She wanted to wait so we could take you home too, but with the way you stomped out of here, I figured I’d take her first and grab you later.”
I stare at the payphone, unable to believe that Dad hung up on me. “I’d appreciate that ride if you have time.” I return the phone to its cradle, still smarting over the fact that my own father had turned down my request for help.
We get in his cruiser and he lets me sit in the front seat this time. “So, I saw the building this morning,” he says as he turns onto the main road.
I’m pretty sure everyone has seen it by this point.
