“Just up here,” he says. “On the left.”
“Hopefully, it’s open,” I say, and I tell him about my own coffee-shop quest Saturday, making far too convoluted a story of it. That’s my way of coping with the awkward silence.
“There,” he says, with the relief of a sailor spotting land in a storm. “It’s open. Good.”
We go inside. Only a few tables are occupied, and I spot the perfect pair of comfy chairs in a corner. He sees it at the same moment and says, “Can you grab those while I get in line? Just tell me what you want.”
“I’ll buy my own.”
“My treat. Really. I told Mom I might be seeing you after school and she gave me —” He pulls a twenty from his pocket. Two more fall to the floor, and he scrambles to pick them up.
“Wow,” I say. “We can buy out the pastry counter with that.”
He gives a self-conscious laugh. “Yeah, really, huh? ’Cause I need sixty bucks to take you for a coffee.” He shakes his head. “They do that a lot. Shoving money at…” He trails off with another shake of his head. “Whatever.”
Shoving money at problems. As if that will cure what ails us. My dad’s the worst for it, depositing weekly money into my account, which I refuse to touch.
Sorry for screwing off when you needed me. Have some cash to make it better.
Even Mom makes sure my wallet is always full.
Do you need anything, Skye? Anything at all?
I want to tell Jesse that I understand. Maybe even explain about my parents. But that’s more of the awkward. Oversharing to fill the silence.
So I just say, “Can I get a caramel latte and a brownie?”
A wry smile. “Are you sure you don’t want ten?” He waves the cash.
“I’ll take the biggest latte they’ve got.”
His smile softens then, a real one for me as he nods and says, “Biggest latte. Biggest brownie. On me. Well, on my mom. Go grab those chairs before someone else does.”
Jesse hands me my latte and puts a plate with two brownies on the table, over on my side. I push it to the middle for us to share. He pushes it back again, and he’s watching me, waiting for me to smile, to make some sardonic comment. But I can’t. I’m struggling here, on this dangerous terrain.
Jesse is showing me glimpses of the guy I knew, reminders of what we had, and I’m too eager to see that. Too ready to jump at it. I’m terrified that if I do, I’ll show up in math class tomorrow and he’ll sit with his back to me, like this never happened.
I can’t handle that. I just can’t.
So I murmur a “Thanks,” and I know it’s not what he wants, but it’s all I’ve got.
I sip my drink, and he does the same, and I’m watching his hand around the cup, the curve of his fingers. I don’t recognize that hand. The soft fingers are gone. The chewed nails are gone. The Band-Aids are gone – I swear he always had one from some accident or other. It’s just a guy’s hand. Could be anybody’s.
“My mom says your gran had a stroke,” Jesse says. “How is she?”
“Okay.”
“We don’t hear…” He puts his cup down. “Stuff, you know. About you guys. Not much, anyway. I know your parents split. How’s your dad?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
Alarm flashes across his face, and I know I’ve been too forthright. Too old-Skye.
“We don’t really communicate,” I say. “It’s just me, Mom and Gran. Which is fine.”
“And your mom…?” he asks carefully. “Did she… get better?”
I pick at my brownie. “It’s severe clinical depression. They can’t seem to find the right meds or maybe she’s not taking them or… I don’t know.”
I inhale sharply. “Mom’s doing her best. I understand that. We deal. We cope. Or we did until child services decided I wasn’t old enough to look after myself.” I roll my eyes. “Like you pass some magical age and then, poof, we can trust you not to die of starvation, playing video games 24/7. I did just fine when Gran had her first stroke, but no, that doesn’t count.”
I’m looking for agreement here. For a nod.
Instead, he’s staring at me, and then he says, “I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“About your mom and your gran and your dad. Child services stepping in. I had no idea —”
“They didn’t step in, Jesse. They interfered. That’s why I’m here, with Mae, who thinks what I really need is to come back to Riverside, chin up. Tough through it. Which is working out so well.”
He just looks at me. And his expression…
I hate his expression. It’s horror, and it’s pity, and it’s everything I don’t want to see on anyone, but especially not Jesse.
“Are we actually going to talk about the fire?” I say. “That’s what you said.”
He straightens. “Tell me what’s been going on.”
“I already did. The fire and the stuff at Mae’s condo. Which is really just the fire. The condo stuff is silly.”
“Someone breaking into your home isn’t silly, Skye.”
“Breaking in to put mud on my boots and leave them in the hall? Spook me with Luka’s shirt in the closet? Take half my Hershey bar and smush it into the sofa? Who’d do that? It’s a waste of perfectly good chocolate.”
“Mud on your boots? Luka’s shirt in your closet?”
I shake my head. “Mae must have been storing Luka’s shirts in the closet, and one fell off the hanger and startled me. I found my boots in the hall, caked in mud, which means I obviously wore them and forgot, because no one is going to break in and muddy my boots. It’s crazy.”
“It is.”
I take a bite of the brownie. Swallow without remembering to chew, and then have to gag it down.
Achievement unlocked. Even Jesse agrees. You are officially losing your mind, Skye Gilchrist.
“I should speak to someone,” I say, picking at the brownie. “There’s a therapist I can call. She’s good. I’m obviously stressed and imagining things, and now I’m lumping that with the fire, which was a stupid prank.”
“If you tell me you didn’t leave those boots out or eat that candy bar, I believe you.”
“You just agreed it was crazy.”
He pulls back. “No, I meant it seems crazy. It makes no sense. But it has to, right? There’s a method to the madness. We just aren’t seeing it.”
He eases into his chair, settling into a look I know well. Jesse’s problem-solving mode.
“Are you sure Mae’s just storing the shirt?” he says. “It seems weird that she’d keep Luka’s stuff in your closet. Is there more there?”
“I didn’t look. Maybe she just kept that shirt. He wore it a lot – the Black Death tour one.”
His lips twitch in a smile. “I remember that. Even Jamil said it was cool. I was surprised he got the joke.” Jesse’s smile flickers, and then he tucks it away and says, “That was probably the most distinctive thing Luka wore. Are you sure it was even his?”
“What do you mean?”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, gaze distant as his brain works. “I bet it’d be easy to find one online. Whoever broke in could have bought and planted it. Left it half on the hanger, so it would eventually fall and you’d notice it.”
He leans back. “The boots. The shirt. The chocolate. All signs that someone else was there. But subtle. Signs no one else would recognize.”
He sits up quickly. “Exactly. Weird stuff you can’t prove. Mae might think you brought that shirt and forgot, like you forgot the boots and chocolate. Or that you’re coming up with wild tales to explain tracking mud through the apartment and getting chocolate on the couch. Like the Monty stories. Remember?”
Monty was the name I gave to a poltergeist who was very clearly responsible for every broken toy and missing juice box in our house. Hey, I was four. I had an imagination, and I wasn’t afraid to use it.
I pull my knees up. “Maybe I’m doing that again.”
“But you knew you were making it up with Monty, right?”
“Yes, but —”
“Stop making excuses, Skye. That’s not like you.”
He says it with this gesture, a flick of his fingers, dismissive.
That’s not like you.