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Finally, I dial Elijah’s number, knowing that Olive and Stephanie are definitely still in class.
“Yes?” he sighs as he answers, already bored.
“I need you to come pick me up,” I say fighting back tears. I feel like a fucking fool.
“Where?” he says, an urgency to his voice, and I’m surprised he’d consider helping at all.
“I don’t know I’m walking around the neighborhood a little past old town. I think it’s the Northwood Heights area.”
“Northwood Heights? What the fuck are you doing out there, Taylor?” I can hear his car start in the background, and his door shuts.
“Look, you’re the last person I wanted to ask but I’m kind of lost and in a predicament. Can you please just drive me home?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Tell me your crossroads.”
“I’ll just send you my location. It’s easier that way.” I send it quickly, then sit down on the sidewalk across from a dilapidated house and an empty dirt field. By the time he pulls up, my nose is so cold it feels like it could fall off.
I hop into his Jeep and put the seatbelt on. Instead of driving off he stares at me, his left hand on the wheel, his other on his thigh. “I’m not moving until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Elijah, please, I just want to go home. I’m starving.”
“We can pick up Bibio if you tell me.”
Is he trying to bribe me? Is it working?
“Will you pay?” I ask, suddenly feeling giddy about mandu.
“Fuck,” he scoffs, shaking his head. “Yes. Now tell me why you’re wandering alone out here. Are you trying to get assaulted? Murdered?”
“Shit! I need to call another tow. Hold on.”
“Taylor!” he growls.
“Hold on. It’s important.”
He parks the car on the side of the road while I call another tow truck, putting it on Dad’s card because fuck, what else am I going to do? My thoughts shift to how I’ll have to get that barista job sooner than I thought when I realize I need to be at Elizabeth’s when the tow truck arrives. Frustrated, I throw my head back against the seat.
“I need another favor,” I say, looking down at my phone to text Dad why his card has been charged again.
Elijah grabs it from my hand and puts it in his pocket. “Hey!”
“Taylor!” he yells. “We’re not moving until you tell me everything.” His eyes are wild as they move across me back and forth. Maybe he really is worried about me.
“My car broke down outside of campus. I have a friend who lives out here who said they can fix it for me. So, I had a tow truck bring it out here.”
“You met some guy and let him take you back to his house to fix your car, stranded out here?” he yells, and I sink back into the chair.
“I sit next to her in Environmental Science,” I say. It takes him a second to process that I didn’t follow some strange guy into his house in the middle of the day. But he still looks pissed.
“It’s Samantha’s girlfriend,” I add, knowing that will ring a bell for him.
“You know Sam? You shouldn’t be hanging around her. She’s bad news.”
“She saw, Elijah. She saw Derek get thrown into the window and she thinks you did it.”
“Fuck! Why didn’t you start with that?” he says, his hand tightening on the steering wheel. The veins in his muscly arms threaten to pop.
“I’m sorry! I’m just… I’m frazzled, and I’m so fucking hungry,” I yell, holding my growling stomach.
