He narrows his eyes. “I remember, Savannah. I remember pretty goddamn clearly.”
Does he? Does he remember what it was like the morning she left? Because I do. I was the one who called around looking for her. I was the one who had to miss school to babysit Evan. And I was the one who had to tell him that she wasn’t coming back.
Evan was destroyed. I sure as hell remember that.
“This isn’t working,” my father says, motioning the way my brother had gone. “And it’s not going to work.” But there’s a crack in his voice, maybe the last bit of his conscience wearing away.
“It’s getting better,” I say, knowing it’s not true, but desperate to believe it.
My father blinks a few times as if clearing tears, and slowly moves to grab the dishrag hanging near the stove. “Just keep Evan out of my face tonight, Savannah,” he whispers.
So I do. I walk into the living room and find my brother curled into a ball on the couch, most of his crayons broken on the carpet. He’d just gotten them back, too.
I close my eyes for a second, hating the moment. Hating my life. But then I straighten up, brush my hair away from my face, and get down on the floor to shove the crayons back into their box. Broken.
CHAPTER TWO
I have my brother mostly settled by the time our aunt arrives to pick him up an hour later. Once a week and then on weekends, our aunt Kathy takes Evan to her house, where she feeds him vegetables, washes his clothes, and reads him bedtimes stories. She won’t be happy to know I already filled him with processed meats and cheeses, but it was the only way to get him in the house.
Tomorrow morning Kathy will personally drive Evan to school. But when the day is done, my brother comes back here, back to this. Back to me.
Kathy used to invite me along, before I was a dangerous felon. But I’ve been expelled from more than school. My mother’s sister wrote me off. I’m not even welcome in my own family.
Travis’s car is parked at the curb when I walk onto the porch. Evan and Kathy are already gone, and my father uses these nights as an excuse to get drunk. I prefer to be gone when he does that.
I let the screen door slam shut and jog down the stairs toward the car. Retha leans her elbow out the open passenger window.
“Evan go with Kathy okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s got him this weekend, too. I should have told her no.”
“She’s a bitch.” Retha’s the type to hold a grudge. The minute my aunt stopped letting me in her house she went on Retha’s shit list. In fact, the two can’t be in the same room together without Retha cussing her out. But I like that about her—I like that Retha always has my back.
I get in the car and slide to the middle and lean between the front seats. When I do, I notice bruises on Travis’s knuckles where he’s resting his right hand on the steering wheel.
“That from Gris?” I ask him, motioning toward his hand. He didn’t seem as banged up when he brought me home earlier.
“Naw,” Travis says, flexing his fingers as he studies them. “I was working on the engine. Must have knocked it against something.”
Retha glances at him, her brow furrowed. Travis’s hangover should be gone by now, but you never know with Travis. He might be nursing a completely different bender at this point.
I nod and rest back in the seat. It’s none of my business how he got those bruises. Retha turns away, and Travis shifts into gear before pulling his car out into the street.
I watch out the window as we drive. On my nights without Evan, I never know where I’ll end up, and I never know when I’ll be home. But it’s nice. It’s nice to be free for a little while. Even if it’s not very often.
Our evening starts at 7-Eleven, just like it always does. Travis has his brother’s ID, which is a direct violation of his parole, but it’s not like we’d turn him in for it.
We park in our usual spot along the side of the building and Retha and I wait in the car as Travis makes the run. My beverage of choice is nonalcoholic. I watch my father get drunk all the time at home—I don’t need to inherit his problem.
“I’m thinking of piercing my nose,” Retha says, examining her face in the rearview mirror.
“You should,” I agree. “Just don’t let it get infected like your eyebrow.”
She spins toward me and her black ringlets whip her cheek. “It was not infected!” she says.
“It looked disgusting.”
“Shut up.” She turns around. “Did I say shit when you pierced your belly button?”
“Uh, yeah. You called me a poseur.”
She smiles. “You are a poseur.”
I laugh and tell her to fuck off.
The driver’s door opens, and Travis gets in, clutching a paper bag. He reaches inside and pulls out a soda.
“Dr Pepper,” he announces, passing it back to me.
“Thank you.”
“And for you, my love,” he says to Retha, pulling out another bottle. “Mike’s Hard Lemonade.”
She leans over, her lips spreading into a smile. “Thank you, baby,” she whispers, and kisses him.
I open my soda, letting it hiss so it doesn’t bubble over. Just as I take a sip, Retha laughs.
“Holy shit, Savvy,” she says, untangling herself from Travis. “Isn’t that your boyfriend out there?”
My stomach drops, and I lower my drink. I don’t have a boyfriend, but I do have a particularly psychotic ex. Then again, if Patrick were out there, Retha wouldn’t be laughing. She’d be grabbing a bat.
“Who are you talking about?” I slide to the window and scan the parking lot, recognizing no one.
“He just went inside,” she says. “Damn, girl. Is that a new Beamer?”
“Who?” I ask. “I don’t know anyone with—” I stop when I realize she must be talking about Cameron Ramsey. I spot his car. “Same BMW,” I say, even though I’m sure she already knew that.
“The new kid from class?” Travis asks.
Retha points a sharp fingernail toward the store. “That’s him,” she says. Retha turns to me and smiles. “Go say hi, Savvy.”
“No.” She’s crazy if she thinks I will.
“Go.”
“No, Retha,” I say. “I’m not stalking Cameron into a 7-Eleven.”
“Come on,” she says like I’m just being stubborn. “The boy likes you. He talks to you.”
“So?”
“He doesn’t talk to anyone else,” she says.
She has a point, and maybe he does sort of like me. Maybe. But it doesn’t really matter. I’m still not following a dude from my delinquent class into a convenience store. I’m not a total loser.
“Let’s just drive somewhere,” I tell them, trying to sound like I don’t care. But I can’t help stealing another glance out my window. I look down at my soda, peeling the label for a distraction.
If it was a few years ago, maybe even last year, I could have tried for someone like Cameron. He might have fit in with my crowd—all the jocks and cheerleaders. But I’m not that girl now. And I don’t have those friends anymore.
Besides, I don’t have time for a guy to mess with my head. I have my brother to take care of. I’ll always have him.
Retha leans over to whisper in Travis’s ear, and I rest my head back against the seat. Travis starts the car and shifts into gear, but instead of driving to the street, he crosses the parking lot and parks next to the shiny black BMW.
I sit up straight. “Wait. What are you doing?” I ask him.
He catches my eyes in the mirror and shrugs.
“Traitor,” I mutter.
“Time to pee,” Retha calls, getting out. She opens the back door and ducks in to look at me. “You’re coming with.”
“Am not.” There is no way.
“Get out of the car, Savannah,” she says, “or I’m telling Cameron you’re waiting out here to give him a blow job.”
I burst out laughing. “You would never.”
“She
definitely would,” Travis says. “I’d listen to the woman.”
“No.” I shake my head and turn back to her. “I’m calling your bluff, Retha. You would never embarrass yourself like that.”
She bites her bottom lip for a second and looks me over. “Okay.” She slams the door and stomps toward the store.
I gasp. “Holy shit. She’s not serious, right?” I ask Travis.
“I’d say she is.”
“Stop her.” I push his shoulder.
He laughs. “You know I can’t stop Retha from doing anything. You’d have a better chance than me.”
He’s probably right, but I’m not going in there. I set my bottle in the middle console and lean between the seats, staring into the glass front of the store.
My heart speeds up a little when I see Cameron. He’s carrying a bag of chips and a bottle of Mountain Dew, pausing at the cookies near the register. Retha walks straight toward him.
I watch as Retha talks to Cameron and he stares down at her, seemingly amused. He laughs once when she motions toward the car. He glances over and I duck behind Travis.
“This is such bullshit,” I say. Travis snorts a laugh. I wait a moment, and when I peek in the store again, Cameron is staring at Retha, tilting his head as if confused. She continues to talk, and with his eyebrows hitched up, Cameron looks toward the car again.
He sees me, and his mouth flinches with a smile. No way. Does he actually believe her? Retha turns and waves at me, before taking Cameron’s arm and leading him to the registers.
I’m going to die. How could she do this? She is seriously hard-core.
“Let’s leave her,” I tell Travis, knowing he’d never agree.
“You made your bed.” He turns off the engine as if we’ll be here for a while. He seems all too willing to participate in my humiliation.
The doors of the 7-Eleven open, and Retha and Cameron walk out. Cameron has a paper bag and a smirk on his face. I can’t believe him. Is he some sort of pervert—thinking girls just give out blow jobs in the backseats of cars? Is that what he’s into? I hope Travis kicks his ass.
Cameron opens my door, and I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him.
“Hey, Sutton,” he says, looking down at the soda in my lap instead of at my face.
“Seriously?” I ask him. “I can’t believe you’d even come out here. Are you really that desperate?” I can’t believe I ever thought he was smooth.
Cameron furrows his brow and glances outside at Retha. She laughs and climbs in the front seat.
“Uh . . . sorry,” Cameron says, turning back to me. He fumbles with the bag, reaching inside. “Your friend asked if I could buy this for you. She told me you were dying for one.”
“Shit.”
And then he pulls out a sucker from the bag. A lollipop. A Blow Pop to be exact. Cameron keeps his eyes on my sneakers and stretches the Blow Pop in my direction. My cheeks burn with complete mortification. I almost don’t take the sucker, but having him stand outside the door like this is humiliating.
“Thanks,” I say quietly, taking the Blow Pop from his hand. Now I feel sort of bad for calling him desperate.
Cameron straightens up. “Well, this was fun,” he murmurs. “Have a good night.” He closes the door and backs away.
Inside the car, none of us speak as we watch Cameron get into his Beamer and drive off. When he’s gone, Retha turns around, smiling wickedly. “Damn, he’s fine.”
“A Blow Pop?” I ask her.
“Better than a blow job, right? I mean, we don’t just give it away, Savvy.”
“You are so fucking evil.”
“Aw, come on.” She laughs. “It’s okay to like him. How many guys would buy a girl a lollipop for no reason? Not many. He’s a sweetheart.”
“I’d buy you one,” Travis says, sounding hurt.
Retha reaches over to play with his hair. “I know, baby,” she says. “But we’re past that stage of our relationship. Now I want things that are shiny.”
They kiss, and I relax back into the seat, twirling the sucker between my fingers. Strawberry isn’t my favorite flavor, but it still makes me smile. No one has ever given me a Blow Pop before.
Later, when Travis finally pulls up to my house at three a.m., I still have the sucker in my hand even though the stick has started to shred. Retha is passed out in the front seat, and Travis’s eyelids are heavy. He raises his hand to me in a wave when I get out.
I wait at the curb as the taillights of his car disappear around the corner. Dread creeps in the minute I turn to look at my house. It’s small with peeling white paint and a flat roof. The wide front stairs lost their finish a long time ago and are crumbling at the edges. No one will take care of it anytime soon. The house is pathetic. Like my life.
I sit on the top stair in the dark, facing the street. Over in the corner of the lawn (if you can call dirt a lawn) is a bumpy patch where there used to be a garden. It hurts to look at it, hurts to remember why it’s there.
My family was almost normal before Evan. My mother even tried to plant a garden while she was pregnant with my brother. But after Evan was born, after she knew he wasn’t going to be “right,” she let the flowers die. Our family died with them.
I wipe hard at my face, pushing away the thoughts. The anger. In my other hand I clutch the Blow Pop. I bring it in front of me, staring at the white-and-pink wrapper. It’s such a simple thing.
I think about Cameron, his face when I called him desperate. I should apologize to him, but I probably won’t. I won’t know how.
But I am grateful. And to prove it, I unwrap the lollipop and bring it to my lips.
CHAPTER THREE
I’m already so tired, but I’ll have Evan after school today. My mornings are like this—filled with exhaustion, anxiety, maybe guilt. It hasn’t always been this way. I used to be able to catch the bus with my friends. I used to have a life. I used to have a mother.
My alarm clock buzzes on the side table next to me and I slap it off. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
Gross. School.
Travis and Retha meet me out front with a cup of coffee and a Ho Ho. They are the best friends ever. They are also so hungover that they’re moaning. It’s a good thing I don’t like alcohol. Spending half of my day nauseous sounds awful.
“You look terrible,” I say to Travis when I catch his red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. “Should really stop drinking.” I bite into my Ho Ho.
“Thanks, Mom,” he answers, and turns up the radio. He always gets cranky when I bring up his drinking.
I’ve been with Travis and Retha for close to a year now. Retha is like me—anger management issues. Only my weapon of choice was a number two pencil and hers was her fist. Travis has different problems altogether. Problems that keep him in and out of rehab.
“By the way,” Retha says, turning to glance back at me, “I heard Lucinda Wilson is going to be starting at Brooks today. Keep that bitch away from me, all right?”
“I don’t even know who she is.”
“One of my ex-girlfriends,” Travis says quietly. But Retha still turns to glare at him.
“Yeah,” she adds, snaking her head. “And she’d better keep her nasty hands to herself or I’ll break them off.”
Travis sighs like he’s tired of the conversation, and knowing Retha, this probably isn’t the first time they’ve had it. Retha resorts to fighting before talking. She’s all fists like that.
“I’ll keep my eye out for a handsy ex,” I say, sticking the last piece of Ho Ho in my mouth. “Just don’t get me in a fight. Again.”
Before I came to Brooks Academy I had only been in one fight—the one that sent me here. Even though, technically, it was “assault” and not a real fight. Now it seems like every weekend I’m running either to or from an ass kicking.
Retha smiles at me. “I’ll try my best.” As we walk into the classroom, Mr. Jimenez looks especially exhausted and clings to his podium, rustling through papers
. The place is pretty much empty. But I do notice the shiny new blonde in the front row. Hello, Lucinda.
Travis makes a spectacle of wrapping his arms around Retha as he walks her to her seat. She and Lucinda exchange the required “bitch-ho” comments, and all is right with the world.
But when I sit down, I feel a little stab of disappointment. No Cameron. I’d been nervous to talk to him after the Blow Pop incident, but I was still looking forward to seeing him. I glance toward Retha just as she lies across her desk with a loud sigh. Travis retreats to his corner for a nap, and Gris is in his desk with his baseball cap pulled down to cover his black eye.
Mr. Jimenez straightens up at the podium. “Ah . . .” he says, looking over the class. “Fifty percent attendance rate. That’s a new classroom high.”
“High,” Gris repeats with a laugh. Nobody joins him. We’re all too tired.
Mr. Jimenez shakes his head in disappointment. “Okay. Let’s get out our math workbooks and turn to page ninety-seven. I’ll save the lecture.”
Poor guy. I almost want to learn something just to give him a reason to live. Brooks Academy is like teacher purgatory—a world between college and a real gig. That is why most of the staff is made up of twenty-somethings with a save-the-world complex. But they all burn out eventually and it seems Mr. Jimenez is well on his way.
The class door opens, and Cameron walks in. I smile before I realize what I’m doing, and I stop before anyone can notice. Cameron has his blond hair pulled back tight and a crisp white T-shirt straining around his biceps. He watches the floor as he makes his way to his desk.
“Now we’re really shooting for the stars,” Mr. Jimenez says. “Even Cameron came to class today.”
Cameron sits in the desk next to me, not acknowledging our teacher, and takes out a notebook. I watch him, but then I notice Lucinda leaning out of her seat to stare at him. I narrow my eyes at her until she turns around.
“Page ninety-seven?” Mr. Jimenez repeats for all of us.
Oh, right. Math.
I take out my workbook and flip through the completed pages until I notice Cameron staring down at his desk.
“Hey,” I whisper. He looks sideways at me. “Math workbook.”