“We have a little time.”
One week to be exact. One week in this hotel before she left for Phoenix, before I was on my own.
Fifteen
Callie
Carson texted me and asked me to meet him at the pool so we could leave from his work to go shopping. I told Mom I was leaving Franklin in the backyard for some exercise and slipped out the back gate. It was about a twenty-minute walk from my house, so I put in my headphones and listened to some music on the way.
This time of year, there were little kids playing in the small parks along the way. Seeing them made me smile as I thought of two ten-year-olds trying to swing higher than the other.
Through the pool fence, I caught sight of Carson pacing the perimeter of the water with his float. He wore board shorts only, avoiding a farmer’s tan like the one he got his first summer guarding. Across the water, a couple of college girls sat in the lounge chairs, ogling him. They kept giggling and glancing over their sunglasses, trying to get his attention.
Couldn’t they see he had more important things to focus on—like saving lives? Okay, to be fair, there were only three kids in the shallow end and an older lady who looked like she’d fallen asleep on a float, but still.
I approached the pool cabana and entered the code to get in.
“Hey, Cal,” said the pool manager, one of the moms who lived a few houses over from me.
“Mrs. Mayes, how are you?” I asked.
With a smile, she shrugged. “Can’t complain. Caden is actually lifeguarding this year.”
“You’re kidding!” I said. Her daughter had just finished her freshman year at Emerson High.
“Nope,” Caden said from behind me.
I turned to see her smiling with a full set of braces.
“Good for you!” I said. “How are you liking it?”
“It’s my first shift,” she said. “Carson gave me a few pointers though.”
I glanced at him, his whistle between his lips. He blew a few short bursts and then called, “Safety break!”
“He’s the best,” I said.
As the people in the pool made their way to the edges, Caden walked to the rack of lifeguard supplies behind her mom’s manager desk and grabbed a float. She looked so cute in her bright pink one-piece. Part of me thought it might be best to avoid swimming while someone so petite was responsible for saving my life.
Carson didn’t meet my eyes before hanging up his float.
Why did he seem so off? Usually I could count on him for a smile and a wave.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
I nodded.
He went back to the locked room where they kept their things and the lost and found. When he returned, he had his keys in hand and a T-shirt halfway over his head. He slid it over his abs and pushed out the door without even saying goodbye to Mrs. Mayes. Something was seriously wrong.
I followed a few steps behind him to his car and got in. He shut his door a little harder than usual. Where was my happy-go-lucky friend?
“What happened?” I asked, realizing he wasn’t going to divulge anything on his own.
He looked at me, and I jerked away from the bruise spreading around his eye with veins of purple and blue. A gasp escaped my lips. “Carson... what happened?”
His hands clenched on the steering wheel. “My mom took a traveling pharmacist job. She’s leaving my dad.”
My mouth fell open, my mind reeling with all that came along with that news. “She’s what?”
Carson's gaze darkened, and he pulled out of the parking lot, starting down the road. In the lines of his face and the whiteness of his knuckles, I felt each ounce of his pain as if it were my own. With each sister that left, things had gotten harder. His mom worked more hours, his dad began leaning on alcohol again for comfort at night, and Carson had been left to navigate life on his own. Still, his mom had always been at least a phone call away.
“But the bruise...” I covered my mouth. “Your dad was upset.”
“Their marriage has been over since before we moved here.”
For a moment, I realized how lucky I was, just to have the parents I did. And none of that had been due to anything but sheer fortune. What would my life be like if I’d been the one his parents had taken home from the hospital?
“What about your bruise?” I asked. It looked bad, and the fact