He raises his eyebrows and laughs, but it’s a little bitter. “You’re going to sit there and explain to me that you don’t get to choose who you love?”
I crawl closer and pull him down with me, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I guess you get that part already.”
“He goes to Redwood High, and he’s a junior. Plays linebacker. I’ve crushed on him since we talked after our first game this season.”
“The guy from the party?” I ask. “The cute one?”
He nods.
I yank the pillow out from under his head. “Then why’d you say he wasn’t your type?”
He takes a deep breath and stares at the ceiling. “Do you have any idea how hard high school is for a guy? We’re supposed be trying to fuck all the cheerleaders, not the opposing team.”
I pull him tighter into the hug. “I love you too, if that helps.”
He rolls his head and smiles that rubber smile. “Slut.”
?
I go to my job after school, not sure if I even still have one.
“So, what was that yesterday?” Gillian asks when I walk in, her expression suspicious and her arms folded tightly across her chest.
I glance around and find the store empty, save us. “I’m sorry about the scene…and leaving,” I say, evading the question. “It won’t happen again.”
She looks at me a moment longer. “You know I can only pay you for the hour you were here yesterday.”
I nod.
She turns her back and starts straightening the cartons of cigarettes on the shelf behind the counter. “I took care of the cereal, but I need you need to check the pet food section and diapers.”
“Got it.” I turn for the shelves and breath a relieved sigh once I’m hidden in them. For the next five hours, I wait for the other shoe to drop…Destiny, or worse, the police to show up and make another scene. At eight when Gillian flips the open sign in the door to closed, both relief and dread wend through my insides. No public scene, but now I have to go home and face Destiny one on one.
I told her the truth. Besides Bran and I, she and Jon are the only other people on the planet who know what happened in that motel room. She’s the only person who could hurt Bran.
I’ve stalked my phone, waiting for a text or call from Bran. So far, nothing. If he listened to the message, he knows he’s in danger. I have to talk Destiny down.
I unlock the flimsy street door and trudge up the stairs. When I walk in to the apartment, I don’t see Destiny, but I do see boxes stacked on the counters. I look inside and find our entire kitchen is already packed into them.
Destiny comes out of her bedroom and just looks at me. The disappointment in her eyes is glaringly apparent, but there’s less unbridled fury than was there yesterday.
I hold up a hand lamely. “Hi.”
“Are your thoughts straight?” she asks with a sour expression, and I realize she’s mocking Bethany.
“Straighter.”
She moves to the couch and drops into it. “Then explain it to me.”
I lower myself into the cushions on the other end. “When I met Bran, I didn’t know you were into him. I didn’t know about your ‘grand plan,’” I say, making air quotes with my fingers. “But the thing is, Destiny, Bran deserves more than to be your security blanket.”
Her frown deepens. “This isn’t about me or my plan or anything but the fact that I trusted you to his care and he took advantage of the situation. He’s not right, Lilah. No normal guy his age is going to take a sixteen-year-old to bed.”
I shake my head. “He didn’t know.”
“That’s bullshit,” she spits. “We talked about you. I’m sure I said something at some point. He knew.”
I picture his face at the show Wednesday, the shock. No. The horror. He couldn’t have acted that. And what would be the point of pretending? “Tell me what you think you said to him about my age.”
She shoots out of the couch and throws her hands in the air. “I’ve worked with him for two months. You’ve come up more than once. There’s no way he didn’t know.”
“You’re wrong,” I challenge.
She glares at me a moment longer, then grabs a box off the living room floor and turns back to the hall. “There are boxes in your room. I’m picking up the U-Haul tomorrow.”
“What about the car? It’s still not fixed,” I say, grabbing at any straw.
“I sold it to the guy for parts,” she says, like it’s no big deal. But it’s a huge deal. She’s always said when this one died we’d never be able to afford another.
Panic kicks in my chest. This is really happening. “Where are we going?”
She spins on me. “How the fuck should I know? I just know we can’t stay here.”
She disappears into her room and I drop back onto the couch. It’s not like Destiny to be so impulsive. She’s the duck person. They all need to be in a row before she makes a decision. Even when we left San Francisco a few months ago, she had this apartment and the job lead at Sam Hill before we got here.