“I guess so.”
The night before, Jared had dreamed of being chased. He couldn’t see who was behind him or what they wanted, but Jared knew, in the dream, he’d done something wrong. And if whoever was behind him caught up he’d be in big trouble. His eyeballs felt as if they’d been scoured with a Brillo pad, as if he’d slept about ten minutes.
“Didn’t she text you and tell you what was going on?” Syd asked.
“She doesn’t text much.”
“So text her. You know if you weren’t here she’d be texting you.”
Jared tried to laugh it off, to play along with the banter. He wondered if Syd had ever been with a girl, if he’d ever so much as made out with someone. And in that moment, he found himself feeling envious of his friend’s easy, uncomplicated life.
As the day went on, he looked for Tabitha in the hallways between classes, but he didn’t have much hope. Something was going on, he knew, something relating to her father and the events of the previous night. Kids came down with stomach bugs and colds all the time, especially when the weather was as shitty as it had been. But Jared refused to allow himself to accept an illness as the cause of Tabitha’s absence. He’d kept her out too late, and then made things worse with the rock.
At lunch he returned to the table with Syd and Mike. He’d been eating with Tabitha every day since she arrived at their school. He knew he’d get shit from them for coming back, but he also wanted the company and the distraction from his constantly racing thoughts.
“The prodigal returns,” Mike said when Jared sat down. Mike was the best-looking friend Jared had. His hair was thick, his clothes always perfect. Mike liked to boast about the girls he’d been with, and if he had been anyone else, Jared would have doubted the stories. But Jared knew the way the girls in the school talked about Mike—as if he were a rock star, just stepped off the stage. Mike had moved to Hawks Mill in the second grade, and he and Syd and Jared had been a tight-knit group of friends ever since. “Your girl wasn’t in history today.”
“She’s sick or something,” Jared said.
“And you can’t text her or anything? Is this all because her dad’s so strict?”
“Yeah.” Jared tried to concentrate on the slice of pizza before him, but he wasn’t hungry.
“And you’ve never met the guy?” Mike’s voice was full of awe. “That’s unprecedented. You’re walking this girl home every day, messing around with her, and the guy doesn’t want to meet you and check you out.”
“He’s never been inside the house,” Syd said. “Never even in the yard.”
Jared wanted to curse at Syd. He told him things in homeroom he’d never tell Mike. But the floodgates were open. Jared was going to face the full force of Mike’s interrogation and wisdom.
“Is that for real?” he asked. “Never set foot in the yard? Is she ashamed of you?”
“Easy, Mike,” Syd said.
“What I mean is, her dad works, right? And where’s her mom?”
Jared tried to think of the right words. “Her mom’s . . . missing in action. They’re separated. I don’t think she knows where her mom lives. It’s kind of like she left them, I think.”
“Weird. Usually mothers don’t leave,” Syd said. “Fathers do.”
“She acts evasive about her mom, like there’s something else going on.”
“So you could be in that house every day after school,” Mike said. “When do you think all the good stuff happens? It’s in that time between school letting out and the time the parents get home from work. I call it the Magic Hour. I guess your mom works too, but she’s pretty smart. She’d know. Dads are clueless for the most part.”
“I brought her to my house yesterday,” Jared said, trying to lighten the mood. “My mom walked in on us.”
Both Mike’s and Syd’s eyebrows shot up.
Mike said, “In the middle of the act?”
“Starting down that road,” Jared said.
“Holy shit,” Syd said. “I wonder what Jenna’s face looked like when she saw that.”
Mike laughed and laughed, the food he was chewing on full display. Jared hadn’t planned on telling him anything, but the sharing of information made him feel more closely connected to his friends. It provided a sense of comfort and ease he hadn’t felt since he walked Tabitha home the night before.
“Mom was cool,” Jared said. “She really was. She has other stuff on her mind.”
“Oh, yeah,” Syd said. “She was on TV last night. My mom saw it. She dropped an f-bomb on Reena Huffman’s show.”