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“Nah, man. It’s a school night for us.” Lincoln saves me from answering. “Also, Tempe is in the opposite direction as Wolf Ridge.”
“How far?” he demands, pulling a vape out of his pocket and sucking on it.
Lincoln steps on the accelerator and our electric car leaps forward, instantly cutting the distance between us and the car in front of us on the highway. “I don’t know–at least forty-five minutes, maybe an hour. You could Google Map it.”
“You guys should take off school tomorrow. What am I supposed to do all day?” Luke complains.
“I told you when you booked the flight not to come until Friday,” I remind him from the back seat. “You said you could entertain yourself. Looks like you get to hang out with our dad.”
“That’s cool, Joe loves me. He can show me the Arizona sights.”
I barely restrain myself from rolling my eyes. But Luke is right. Our dad does love him since he’s the son of his Wall Street attorney and golf buddy.
“Or I could get an Uber to ASU to see Eric.” Luke is texting with his cousin, a student at ASU with a double major in partying. I think half the reason he insisted on flying out here for my Homecoming was for the opportunity to hit the college parties with his cousin. I’m not sure what he thinks he’ll find there. What would be so much better than the parties he already goes to back East?
“He says they’re having a huge party Saturday night. We could blow off Homecoming and go there.”
Lincoln gives a non-committal grunt.
I should jump at the opportunity not to go to a Wolf Ridge High event. It’s not like I care about dressing up and being seen by anyone there.
The twist in my solar plexus says otherwise, though.
I remember Abe’s jealousy about my Homecoming date. The thought fills me with a spreading heat, like when you take a shot of whiskey and choke on the fire.
And even though I owe him nothing, I do feel guilty about being with Luke right now. Like I’m cheating on Abe, a guy I’ve never even kissed. A guy who acts like he hates me at school because of my very species.
What a dick.
Except now I can’t stop thinking about Abe. He occupies my thoughts the entire ride home while Luke drones on about our old friends back home, filling Lincoln in on the gossip he’s already shared at least three times with me. The longer he talks, the more disconnected I feel from my old life. The names are familiar. Luke’s voice and stories are familiar, but I was a different person when I was a part of that life. I may hate everything about Arizona, but nothing about my old life resonates anymore.
We wind our way up through Wolf Ridge to the top of Moongaze Hill. I can’t help but scan the darkness that surrounds our driveway for a flash of fur.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle, but I don’t see anything. Still, I feel certain Abe is out there watching. I’ve seen him every night this week.
It’s what took the bite out of Abe being such a prick at school. I love knowing he’s this obsessed with me that he prowls around my house every night after bedtime.
Lincoln parks in the three-car garage that sits underneath the house, and the three of us head up the stairs.
“Hey, Joe. Long time, no see.” Luke adopts a dopey jocular tone as he shakes my dad’s hand.
I cringe at what he must see. My dad, once a powerful hedge fund manager now looks like an old, underemployed man. He’s unshaven, greeting a house guest in his pajamas and a bathrobe–something he never would have done before Mom died. His once proud shoulders are now stooped and rounded, and his hair has turned salt and pepper. There’s an air of defeat and depression that surrounds him.
Luke knows our dad attempted suicide after our mom died, and the move to Arizona was our attempt to keep him alive. I shouldn’t be embarrassed.
It’s just that I can already hear him relaying the news back to everyone at Landhower. How sad it is that our dad is barely functional now. How pathetic our lives are in hot, dusty Wolf Ridge.
To escape the scene, I walk to one of the giant picture windows that surround the main floor of the house and look out toward the tree line. I’m numb again like I’m trapped inside of a snow globe and can’t get out.
Abe is the only one who ever cracks it open for me.
There.
I catch the reflection of a pair of ice-blue eyes. My heart rate speeds up. The snow globe breaks, and the plasma oozes out. I’m awake again.
Alive.
The corners of my mouth turn up.
