Chapter Seventeen

I racked through the jeans, looking for a medium. Small, extra small, large. No medium. I sighed.

"He likes you." I jumped. Emily smiled at me, rows of straight teeth sparkling between cherry red lips. Her curly black hair fell in ringlets around her shoulders. "What?"

"Grey. He likes you."

"No, he doesn't."


She snorted. "Yes he does. Look at the way he flirts with you!"

"We're friends. We're partners in the science fair together." I thought of the little frog, wondered if he was okay. The little guy was doing better, his splint would come off next week. He still wasn't ready to go out into the wild, but he was on the mend.

Emily interrupted my thoughts, "He's so been flirting with you. Have you ever had a boyfriend?"

"Yes. He was a jerk."

"They often are." We sniggered. I gave up the search for jeans. We left Macy's, huddled in a group, chatting, giggling. I had never felt such a part of anything, never been the one to smile stupidly or laugh at a pointless joke.


But it was a Yo Mamma joke that set it off. My thoughts rushed to my own 'mamma,' her shoulders, her super clean life. Then it was Jimmy, it was Jimmy, and I was laughing, and Jimmy wasn't, Jimmy was gone, and I shouldn't laugh, I couldn't smile. Jimmy wasn't, and I was, and why should I have fun when it was my fault, all my fault.



They continued laughing. I slipped off into the restroom. The door bolted, I slid down into the corner, my black hair sweeping over my shoulders, obscuring my view.



"Where's you brother?" She has on a light, flowy dress, patterned in magenta flowers. I don't know, I tell her. I think back to the morning, it was a rush, I don't quite remember. Fifteen minutes tick by. My father offers to go ask one of the teachers, I see his back as he heads toward the school. A thought trickles into my head.



"Mum! Mum, I forgot to tell him. We were rushing to school, and I forgot to tell him that we were being picked up. He's on the bus." Mum smiles, a worried smile, and tells me to run after my father. I do. I crash into his tall legs. He turns around, a loose, strong face trimmed with a goatee. He looks down at me as I explain and he pulls my hand as we turn to jog to my mother. My lunchbag whacks the side of my knee with each stride.

They whisper quietly as I tease a loose thread in my shirt. Daddy runs back into the building, he is quick.


"No," he says when he comes back. Creases of worry line my mother's face. The thread is now all the way out, I put it in my mouth and chew. "His bus left twenty minutes ago."