He looks at my face. “You don’t like weed?”
“It’s okay.” I’d actually only smoked it a few times with Delaney, whose older brother had some. I liked the way it made us giggle at everything, but we have just as much fun without it. I’m more surprised to hear about my mom. “You’re lucky my mom didn’t tell your parents.”
Jared shrugs. “She’s cool, I can tell.” I’m still thinking about that—how can he tell anything about my mom? do they talk?—when he leans over, plucks a red hair off my shirt, and holds it up to the light. “You have a boyfriend I don’t know about?”
“Yeah, his name is Angus. He’s about a hundred and twenty pounds, snores, eats a lot.”
“You got a dog. That’s awesome.”
“My mom wanted him for protection.”
“From your dad?”
I give him a look. “What do you know about my dad?”
“Nothing, really. She just told my mom a few things, like about her support group.”
I hate that my mom shared anything about our lives. She shouldn’t go around telling people private stuff. I don’t know why it bothers me so much that he knows my dad was abusive, but it makes me feel ashamed. Like if my dad is horrible, then part of me might be horrible too. Jared’s dad probably adores his mom and buys her flowers because it’s Friday or something.
“Maybe she should take the dog with her when she cleans. She does the big house at the end of Wakesiah on Thursdays. It has a really long driveway and is in the middle of nowhere.”
“How do you know that?
“My mom tried to change her days around once.” That doesn’t really explain how he knew about the driveway, but it’s not far from their house, so maybe he knows the owners.
I glance into the living room again. “I should check on Delaney.”
“Hang on. I want to show you something first.” He comes around the counter and grabs my free hand, then tugs me down the hallway. I follow along, enjoying the sensation of our fingers wrapped together, his hand cool from his glass. He stops in front of a door.
“This is my room.” He pushes it open.
We walk in and I look around, taking it all in. I can feel him watching my face. “It’s nice,” I say, and it is, but it’s like something from a magazine, or the Fifty Shades of Grey movie, with all the black bedding and chrome, not a real bedroom.
“My mom hired a decorator,” he says. His arm brushes against mine and we’re still holding hands. I turn and look at him, see in his eyes that he doesn’t like his room either.
“Is this what you want to show me?”
“No, it’s over here.” He leads me to a metal desk in the corner, releases my hand so he can turn on his computer, then nods for me to sit on the chair while he pulls a stool over. We’re so close I can feel the whole length of him beside me, the heat from his arms, his leg. I peek at him from the side of my eye. He must have shaved tonight, his skin is so smooth, and he has really black eyelashes, even blacker than his hair. I like how his top lip is a little fuller on one side. He opens a folder on his computer, clicks on an image, and a photo fills the screen. It’s a photo of our school, but like in a way I’ve never seen it before. It’s taken from the ground up, capturing one of the corners and part of a window in an interesting way.
“That’s so cool,” I say.
He flips through more photos of the school, the trees in front of the gym, some areas around town, the coffee shop, an old woman at the park, and they’re all fascinating, like little glimpses into a different world. It makes me see how he sees everything, how he feels.
He scrolls past another folder and says, “These are old,” as though he doesn’t want to show them to me, but I notice an album picture of a woman with blond hair piled on top of her head like how my mom wears it when she’s working. “Wait, go back,” I say.
He scrolls back. “This one?”
“Yeah. Is that my mom?” I look closer. She’s standing by a large window with silver drapes, looks like his living room. She’s turned away, so I can’t really see her face.
“I forgot about that one,” he says. “She was working.”
“Why did you take her picture?” I look at him, confused.
“I didn’t. She was in the way.” He points to corner of the screen. “I was trying to catch the deer playing on the front lawn.” Now I see the deer in the background.
“Check these ones out.” He scrolls through more shots of people on a beach and walking downtown, and he explains how he makes up stories for each person. “Like in this one, I decided that this guy is a Google executive and he’s taking time off so he can develop his new Web site that he’s going to sell for a billion dollars, and he’s secretly working for the government. This woman is a librarian, but she wants to be an actress and writes erotic poetry in her spare time.”
I laugh. “That’s crazy.”
“It’s more interesting than the truth. Most people are pretty boring.”