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She pulled out the sandwiches.
“No. I never go anywhere.”
I thought about that for a second… letting it sink in. We’d had a dozen or so conversations about her life, but I still felt like I didn’t know her. I hated that pity knitting together in the bottom of my stomach.
I always felt it for her before, but now it felt a little different. It felt more like anger.
“How come I didn’t see you at school ever?” Callie bit into one of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Her eyes stayed on me as she chewed.
It was stupid to feel embarrassed by this, but people always treated us weird when we said it.
“I’m homeschooled.”
Callie’s eyes rounded.
“Oh. I looked for you a few times…”
My chest felt like a firecracker had been shoved inside it. I had looked for her, too, but only when I rode my bike, or when I was brave enough to stop by her mailbox. I was always too scared to go any further.
“Do you like being homeschooled?”
I shrugged, toying with the sleeping bag string. The moon was bright enough that with the sheet pulled to the side, I could see Callie, and she could see me.
“It’s okay…gets boring from time to time, and my siblings are annoying, but my mom finds us a lot of stuff to do in town, with other homeschool groups.”
Callie pulled the water bottle free and twisted the cap.
“You have brothers, right?”
I nodded. “Two…and two little sisters.”
She tipped her head back, drinking, and then let out a sigh.
“That must be nice not to feel alone.”
“You don’t have any siblings?” I wanted to be closer to her for some reason, but I wasn’t sure why. Still, I straightened my legs so my toes were near the edge of the sleeping bag.
She shook her head.
“Nope. Just me. My mom died a while back, so it’s just me and Dad…plus all his girlfriends and the guys in his club.”
She’d mentioned the club before, and it intrigued me now, just like it did the first time I’d heard it.
“So the club…they all ride motorcycles, right?”
Snatching up the bag of potato chips, she pulled it open and tossed a crisp into her mouth.
“Dad says it’s like a family. The members are usually all hairy and old…but they’re nice. They just scare me sometimes when they get really loud, and they do grown-up stuff with the girls around the clubhouse.”
“There aregirlsaround the clubhouse?” I couldn’t help but ask, because all I could picture were girls her age.
“Yeah, there are always girls around. I only like the old ladies, though; they’re the permanent ones that aren’t going anywhere.”
A yawn interrupted the tail end of her sentence, and I realized she was tired.
But a part of me didn’t care. A part of me wanted to be selfish, because like every other time, she would slip away as soon as the sun rose, and as badly as I wanted to be awake and one of these days walk her back, she always beat me.
“Have you told your dad that you don’t like it when he throws the loud parties?”
