strides when I realized she was struggling to keep up.
A cool breeze caused goose bumps to sprinkle across my arms. I should have brought a hoodie with me. Mid-October in LA was still warm, but the evenings were cool. Not cold, just enough where jeans were better than shorts, hoodies were better than T-shirts. Still, Jane didn’t shiver in her summer dress, so if a fourteen-year-old Californian could hack the breeze, so could a guy who grew up on the East Coast.
Glancing down at the top of her dark head, I took in her downcast expression and once again cursed my little sister. I sighed. “Don’t listen to Lorna, okay. She just doesn’t like to not get her own way.”
Frankly, I didn’t know Jane had it in her to stand up to Lorna.
“I know.” Jane looked up at me with those pretty eyes. “But she’s been mean a lot lately, and there’s only so much a person can take.”
Now, I was a guy, and guys liked to think we were above petty shit, but I’d seen enough jealousy between my friends, even between the ones I’d grown up with in Boston, to know what could sour a friendship. Maybe Lorna wasn’t happy her shy, awkward little friend was growing into a cute, talented artist that boys would start noticing soon. If they hadn’t already.
“Good for you. Sticking up for yourself.” I felt awkward saying it. But I didn’t know what else to say. Jane and I had exchanged perhaps twenty words between us in the last year.
“Everyone thinks I’m a pushover. Even Lorna.” She looked up at me and then glanced away as soon as our eyes met. “I’m not.”
I realized a while ago that I made the kid nervous. She rarely met my eyes if we were in the same room.
There wasn’t a lot I could do about that.
We walked down the gentle slope of the quiet street on clean sidewalks, passing Spanish Revival homes with palm trees in nearly every garden. It was a world away from Dorchester.
“Are you writing anything new?” Jane suddenly blurted out.
I almost stumbled.
My eyes narrowed.
Lorna, I’m going to kill you.
“Um … not that … I mean, I didn’t know …” Jane squeezed her eyes closed and some of my anger dissipated at her cute floundering.
Aggravated, but not at her, I waved her off. “It’s fine.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
I shrugged, like I didn’t care when I goddamn did.
We continued in silence.
Until …
“I read that book. The Richard Matheson one. I Am Legend.”
This time when our eyes met, she held my gaze. Realizing she’d tracked down the book from the poster in my room, I smirked. Had little Jane Doe been paying attention to me? “Yeah? What did you think?”
“It was good. Exciting. Sad too.” She sighed, and I heard a tremble in it, betraying her nervousness. I almost felt bad for her, but there was a part of me that thought maybe I liked that she was this hyperaware of me. “I read Stir of Echoes after it. I enjoyed that one too.”
“I didn’t think you read books like that.”
“I’ll read anything that’s good.”
That made me smile. “Yeah,” I agreed.
When we fell into a longer silence, I considered that maybe Jane had used up all her courage for one night. Usually, I’d stay silent. But there was something about her presence, a quiet stillness that I liked. It made me curious about her.
“Why didn’t you call your foster parents to come get you? You know you shouldn’t be walking this far on your own at night.”
Jane bit her lip. “I’m sorry if I’ve put you out.”
“I didn’t say that. And it doesn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t like to bother them.”
Bother them? She was their foster kid. Her job was to bother them. “They’re paid to look after you, right?” I knew right away it was the wrong thing to say. Guilt pricked me, seeing her face fall. “That’s not what I—”
“It’s fine. I just … I don’t want to rock the boat. There’re only four more years until I’m eighteen, and I want to stay with them until then. I don’t want to move again.”
“How long have you been with them?”
“Almost four years.”
I frowned. “Who were you with before that?”
She shrugged. “A few families.”
“And the Greens are the nicest of them all?” My friend, Lip, back in Dorchester, was a foster kid. He’d spent most of his life with a good woman called Maggie. Her asshole husband was lazy, and Maggie was constantly preoccupied