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“The Hoyt family next door.”
“Haley,” Mom scolds me, gritting her teeth with a firm look of frustration. “Not another word about this. Do you understand? Your father does not need to know you overheard any of that conversation.” She lowers her head but lifts her eyes, pinning her stare to my face. “Okay?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Promise me you won’t mention any of this to your father when he gets home.”
I hesitate but only because she’s never asked me to keep anything from him before. Open communication is what keeps a family close. Maybe we aren’t as close as I thought.
Maybe it’s all just an act.
“Yes, yeah, I promise. I won’t say anything.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
MONDAY, JUNE 12TH 11:30 PM
“You should try to get some sleep,” Willa says, startling me from the living room couch, the display of her phone glowing against her face in the dark. I was on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water.
“Why are you still awake?” I ask, whispering. I’m not sure if Jerry has come over at any point in the last couple of hours since I’ve been in my bedroom with earbuds in, or if Willa is the only one here. If he is here, I assume she’d be in her room with him, or he’d be out here too. In any case, she’s usually asleep by now if it’s not a work night.
“I’m worried about you, Hales,” she says, her voice scratchy, likely from being overtired.
“That makes two of us,” I reply.
“Every time you leave the apartment, you end up in some kind of trouble—more trouble than you’ve already found in the last few days. There must be something we can do to pause this ride or get you back on track with the focus on your life, and your life alone.”
That’s all I’ve been thinking about for hours, finding a way to extract myself from this tornado. Thankfully, my last final is over, so at least that won’t be a reason to go anywhere, but thereare still many other loose ends I have to tie up, one being the job I no longer have. “I’ve been looking through job postings for the last hour. I’m on the same page as you.”
“Would you reconsider a waitstaff position at the restaurant?” she offers. “We could work together that way.”
Willa has been trying to get me to apply for a position at the restaurant for the last couple of years but I’m uncoordinated and clumsy, which doesn’t make for the best waiter. Plus, I need to be focused on a position that can add value to my psych degree. I still have a case study I need to write by the end of the summer and my research subjects are detained. “Maybe. I don’t know right now.” I continue into the kitchen and take a glass out of the cabinet next to the sink.
“How did things go with your parents?” Willa sounds hesitant to ask me the question after everything that has gone on today, and I wish she was more hesitant than she sounds so maybe she wouldn’t have asked me at all.
“Not great.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” I reply.
“You know, the couple of times I met them throughout the years, they seemed like very nice people. I can’t imagine why?—”
“Please, don’t go there,” I say, turning on the sink to fill my glass. “Everyone seems so pleasant and put together when they are outside of their homes, but no one knows what a person’s like behind closed doors.”
“I suppose,” she says as I walk back into the living room. “Did you end up finding out who called your dad?”
“Nope. Another endless loop of questions for me to over analyze.”
I find myself staring at her eyes, wishing I could decipher what’s going on in her head right now. Either she or Dad are lying about who told him to come pick me up. Despite neverbelieving a word that comes out of Dad’s mouth, I don’t see a logical reason for him to make up a story about calling Willa to find me. Willa, on the other hand, would have to confess to throwing me under the bus and calling my dad when she clearly stated she would never do something like that to me.
“Well, I’m going to try and get some sleep,” I tell Willa, holding my glass up to her as I continue into my bedroom.
“Goodnight, Hales.”
After locking myself in my bedroom, I place the glass down on my nightstand and grab my phone to view the untouched notifications that have stacked up on my display. I never called Liam back. He did call like he said he would. He’s even left a couple of text messages to tell me he wants to make sure everything is okay.
It’s late, but my midnights are becoming no different than noon with this lack of sleep. I thumb out a quick message to apologize for the delay.
