AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How’d you-”
“How’d I know? How’d I fix things? How’d I get Taylor to confess?” I held myself straighter. “I had help from a friend. Instead of leaving me in the middle of a nightmare, she stepped in and helped me. It’s done now. That’s what matters.”
“We thought we were-” Andrew paled when I narrowed my eyes on him. “Olive…”
My chest felt like it was being crushed so I knew I had to get out of there. “What time are you picking Jesse up?”
“Could we pick him up from school?” Jack’s voice was quiet as he looked up at me. “Would that be okay?”
“I’ll let the school know.” I started to turn away and then swung back around. “If you leave my son sitting at his school, waiting for you, I’ll find a way to make you suffer.”
“Already there, sweetheart.”
Emotion clogged my throat and made my eyes burn. Instead of trying to think of something to say to hurt them, I just turned and walked away. Out of the locker room, out of the stadium, and then I drove out of the parking lot.
I held myself together until I was sitting in my apartment, staring at the stack of books waiting on me. It was like the apartment had grown used to being stuffed full of people and with only me sitting inside, it felt sad. It was too quiet. When I turned the TV on, it was too loud. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I tried to change into my comfiest clothes, but I still felt wrong.
I didn’t have anywhere I was supposed to be. Jerry told me to take the day off and Kitty told me to keep the car for the night. The guys were going to pick Jesse up. Still, I felt like there was something hanging over me.
I cracked and dialed Lydie after staring at the same page of my textbook for over an hour. I hadn’t wanted to make her worry so I hadn’t told her anything about the guys. I didn’t even know if our parents had talked to her about the video I sent them. They hadn’t said a thing to me.
“Big sis! I have been dying to talk to you! Get this. I was minding my own business yesterday, meeting perverts in chat rooms as one does, and then I heard Mom screaming.” Lydie sounded like she was out of breath but it didn’t slow her down. “I’m thinking that she’s finally typed the wrong thing into google and been sent to a page of search results full of hairy balls. I go running out, eager to point out which balls looked like ones I’ve seen before.”
“Lydie!”
“But no, Liv. Mom is screaming her head off at Dad. And you know what?” She hesitated. “I think you know why.”
I couldn’t tell if she was angry at me for not telling her. “I’m sorry for not calling you first.”
“As much as I’d normally love to rub something in your face, this isn’t the right time. You had a lot going on.” She laughed. “Mom and Dad aren’t speaking, by the way. Mom is blaming everything on Dad and Dad literally tried to say that we, as women, are cursed and it’s not his fault.”
I choked on the audacity. “No!”
“Mom threw her bible at him.” She was laughing so hard that I could just hear her wheezing in a silent laugh. “I swear to god, Liv, he still had the imprint of a cross on his forehead this morning. Hey! Whose badass car is this? It’s not one of those MLM cars, is it? I’ve always wanted a pink car.”
My heart jackhammered as I stood up and ran to my door just as someone knocked on it. Lydie had come for me.
58
***Andrew***
“Comeplayballwithme!” Jesse had a death grip on my hand as he tugged me towards Olive’s front door. He looked back and saw that I was looking at the pink car parked next to us. “That’s Mommy’s new car. She picked me up from school yesterday and Ms. Emily said Mom looked like a movie star.”
I glanced over at Caleb and he shrugged. Jack did the same. The three of us weren’t in Olive’s inner circle anymore. We didn’t know what was going on in her life. It was my own fault, but it didn’t make it suck less.
“I bet your mommy did look like a movie star. She’s really pretty.” Jack ran his hand over the car and grunted. “This car was made for your mommy.”
“Someone made that car for Mommy?” Jesse tilted his head up at Jack.
Jack smiled and shook his head. “It’s just a saying.”
Olive’s door cracked open and I steeled myself to see her. I just wanted to hold her. I wanted to make her understand how sorry I was and beg her to forget I’d ever done anything so fucking stupid. The breath I was holding sputtered out when it was Lydie standing in the doorway instead of Olive.
She was a force of anger as she blocked the door with her arms crossed and a deep scowl on her face. “You three have a lot of nerve. I see you’re all coming to the door. Did you think she was going to let you inside?”
Olive appeared behind her sister, a vision in an oversized sweater and bare legs. Her face was what took my breath away, though. It was obvious she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and swollen and her nose was even redder than her eyes. She kept her face down, like that would keep up from seeing that she’d been crying.
She slid past Lydie and held out her arms for Jesse. “Aunt Lydie ruined the surprise, but she came to see us! Come on, buddy. She bought us ice cream. Buckets of it.”
