***
Adam finds me in the lunch line again. He must actually be hungry today because he grabs an orange and a club sandwich and sets them on my tray. “Exactly how long are you grounded?” he starts.
“Until my thirtieth birthday,” I say. “You gathering more food to dump into a trash can?”
“Not this time. I’ve got a hot date.”
I take a granola bar, feigning disinterest. “In the Ridgeview High cafeteria. You’re secretly a player, aren’t you?”
“I just ooze cool,” he says, handing over another ten-dollar bill to pay for our lunches.
I open my mouth because I don’t need him to do this. I’ve seen where he lives. And somehow I doubt working as a part-time janitor has him rolling in extra cash.
“It should be my treat this time,” I say.
His face pinches a little, but he covers it with a smile. “Don’t judge a book by its shit-hole apartment.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
He shrugs it off, but I feel like a schmuck. I nudge him with my elbow, looking up at him. “Am I really in the doghouse already?”
“Nah,” he says. “Unless of course, you’re going to try to get out of our date.”
“No chance.”
“Then your chariot awaits,” he says. He puts the tray in the return area and tucks the sandwich and orange into his coat pockets.
I follow suit, grateful I went with granola and yogurt instead of the massive salad I was eyeing.
Then he slips out of the cafeteria without looking to see if I’ll follow. We’re allowed off campus for lunch, so I don’t get his secrecy. But I follow him anyway, slipping through the parking lot until we’re hunkered down in the front seat of his old Camaro.
We eat lunch with the radio playing as softly as the snow that’s drifting down around the car. After I push my empty granola wrapper into my yogurt cup, Adam pulls my feet into his lap and starts fiddling with the laces on my shoes.
I have no idea how that’s sending goose bumps up my legs, but it is.
“Did you get your pre-calc review back?” I ask, trying to act casual as I lean against the passenger window.
He shrugs. “Yeah. I did all right. You?”
“A minus. And I hate to break it to you, but you don’t really understand the meaning of all right.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. All right indicates an average score, and you don’t do average anything.”
His hands are climbing up to my ankles now. And I don’t know if it’s the way he’s looking at me from under those dark lashes or some secret drug coming out of his fingertips, but he’s making me dizzy.
“I’m average at plenty of things.”
“Oh, please,” I say, pulling my feet off his lap with a smirk. “Let me guess. You probably mean you got like a ninety-seven.”
“Ninety-six,” he corrects me.
I gasp, hand at my throat as I scoot closer on my knees. “You are slipping.”
“I must be distracted,” he says.
He grabs my legs, right under my knees, and pulls me toward him on the bench seat. And then his lips are trailing along my jaw and I couldn’t spell distracted if someone paid me it feels so good. We kiss until we’re running dangerously close to second base during school hours. We ease up with a glance at the clock on his dashboard and the school in the distance.
“We’re awfully good at this for being so new at it,” I say, scooting back to my own seat.
“You’re only surprised because you can’t remember how we looked at each other for the last several months.”
I make a face at my wild reflection in the mirror, trying to finger comb my hair.
“It’s no use,” he says. “You’re going to look hot no matter what.”
“I do rock the kissed-senseless look,” I say. “So there were heated looks between us, huh?”
“Left scorch marks on our flash cards.”
“So tell me already. When did this all start?”
He thumbs his chin, looking pensive. “October. Mrs. Malley’s class.”
I feel my face scrunch in confusion. “Mrs. Malley? She was my fourth-grade teacher.”
“Our fourth-grade teacher,” he says.
I shake my head, laughing. I barely remember him being in my class. He was just a dark-haired boy, always carrying a skateboard and lost in a series of faded T-shirts. Adam tucks some of my hair behind my ear and gives me a little smile that promises more to the story.
“You punched Ryan McCort on the playground. Do you remember?”
I nod. I can still practically feel that moment; the sharp, shocking pain in my knuckles and the sickening feeling that went through me when Ryan’s nose spurted blood. I can still hear Ryan mocking Maggie. “M-m-miss m-m-me, M-m-maggie?” He’d laughed. Mags cried. I punched.
“He had it coming,” I say.
Adam nods. “He did. Hell, Ryan usually has something coming, but that day he picked on the wrong girl.”
“It’s a simple speech disfluency. She’s not stupid,” I say, unable to shake the defensive edge in my voice.
“You don’t have to tell me. Maggie stomped my ass in AP English last year,” he says, smiling wider. “But who knew you’d lay him out next to the swing set. He had six inches and forty pounds on you, easy.”
“I guess I’ve always been a fan of justice.”
“I guess I’ve always been a fan of you,” he says.
And there isn’t a thing I can say to that. Not a single thing. I brace my hands on his shoulders and lean in until our foreheads are together.
“Are you honestly telling me you’ve had a crush on me since the fourth grade?”
“Scout’s honor.”
I laugh. “You were never a Boy Scout.”
He laughs back, and I kiss away any reply he might be tempted to give. And any questions I ever meant to ask.
***
When I arrive home from school, the house is empty. Not surprising. Mom works a lot of overtime for Christmas money and it’s November. She’s got the Thanksgiving grocery list on the fridge and everything.
I’m halfway through a slice of Colby jack when I see Mom’s note on the table. My name flows across the top in her pretty, slanting hand.
Chloe,
I thought you should see this. This isn't a judgment. It's information. I know you'll make the right choice.
Behind the note is a copy of a newspaper clipping. I check the date in the corner. Two years ago. The crime beat.
I feel a rush of rage so strong I’m surprised I don’t crumple the soda can in my hand. But as much as I hate it, it’s not just anger running through me. It’s curiosity too. I want to know.
I scan the copy, spotting a penned circle around one section.
I close my eyes and let out a long sigh. I think about Adam in the car today, his long fingers on my shoelaces, his smile so easy and comfortable I could curl up in it for a nap. I don’t want to give that up.
But I don’t want to be in the dark. Not ever again.
I square my shoulders and start reading.
Youth injured while breaking into a local pharmacy. The perpetrator escaped on foot but was arrested later. Police confirm that the investigation is still ongoing, but the pharmacy owner states that stolen medications have yet to be recovered.
I set the paper down, placing my note on top. I turn it just as it was turned before, as if I never read it. As if I never even saw it lying here.
But I did see it. And I remember the rumors anyway. The halls were wild with crazy talk about Adam robbing a bank or killing a guy or whatever, but I never thought anything of it. I mean, I knew he got arrested, but he was back in school pretty fast, so how bad could it be? I always figured it was a fistfight. Or maybe street racing. The idea of breaking and entering never crossed my mind.
And he didn’t rob a bank. He robbed a pharmacy. For drugs.
I push out mental images of him counting out pills or—God—reeling out of his mind on some nameless high. It doesn’t feel possible.
I back out of the kitchen, wishing I’d never come in here, wishing I could turn back time and somehow unsee what I just read.
But I can’t.
Chapter Twenty
I switch the phone to my other ear, sure I couldn’t have heard what I thought I heard. “Wait a minute, what?”