the day before my grounding was over, went on forever. I worked from noon until close, one of the longest shifts I’d had all summer, and one of the most boring, too. Tammy stood at the open storefront, holding her wrists together behind her back and shifting from one foot to the other while she stared across the shopping plaza. I dragged myself around the store, spraying Windex on every glass surface and rearranging the zebra pencils so they all faced the same direction, and contemplated crashing Maritza’s dance camp on Monday just so I could talk to her.
“Aw, shoot. CuppyCakes has that promotion up for half off their muffin tops, but it says ‘Now through 7/22.’ I meant to get one yesterday. Shoot, shoot, shoot.”
July 23 was ringing something in my brain, but I couldn’t place it. I trailed around the store again, trying to remember, but nothing came to me.
It wasn’t until I was home, sitting on the deck with a glass of ice water pressed to my forehead, that I remembered with a sick, plunging feeling why today’s date was resonating.
Saturday, July 23. The day JaKory was supposed to meet Daveon. The day he’d asked Maritza and me to drive him to Alabama.
I checked my watch: It was almost ten o’clock—long past the hour I could have driven him there. Maybe, I hoped, Maritza had wrangled her way out of being grounded to drive JaKory there in time; or maybe Daveon had found a way to haul himself here instead, and he and JaKory were now nestled comfortably under some blankets, watching Doctor Who. I couldn’t bear the thought of JaKory sitting alone in his room, texting Daveon about how they’d find some other way to see each other, bitterly explaining that he’d never expected his two best friends to leave him hanging like this.
I called him before I could think twice about it. He didn’t answer.
I called again. He ignored me again.
I texted him, sending up a prayer to the universe.
Did you make it to meet Daveon?
He answered after a long delay. I could almost feel him glowering down at his phone, hating me for asking.
JaKory Green: What do you think?
The plunging in my stomach intensified. My entire body was prickly and hot.
JaKory Green: To clarify, no, I did not get to meet the boy I’m so deeply in love with. But thanks for caring.
I felt sick with myself. Of all the things I’d messed up over the last week, this one was by far the worst.
I sat there on the deck, the insects loud, the air still warm, the summer swelling with its last untouchable days. I thought of my parents, who were inside watching NCIS reruns and would no doubt be heading up to bed by eleven, and of my brother, who was shut up in his room, hating me, thinking I didn’t care. I wondered if he was right.
Time stopped measuring itself as I sat there, unmoving, the water glass gradually warming in my hand. Suddenly I was reliving the entire summer in my head. I saw the beginning, with Maritza and JaKory and my brother, and I saw the night everything changed, with Ricky by the trees. I looked down at my feet, my stomach, my hands, and wondered if they were really mine. I wondered if they were the same now as they had been in May, before everything began.
I didn’t figure anything out, not like Lydia had promised I would; instead I just got to this point, after sitting out there for a while, where I knew what I wanted and needed to do.
Ricky screened my first call, but when I tried him again, he picked up on the second ring.
“Everything cool, Codi? I’m out with Tucker.”
“I need a really, really huge favor,” I said, springing up from my chair. “How do you feel about driving to Alabama?”
20
The text came at a quarter to midnight.
Ricky Flint: On your street. Two houses down. My lights are off.
I was already down in the basement, waiting to sneak out the back door, and I didn’t wait a second longer. My heart lurched as I crept up the back walk toward the driveway. It was after I’d stepped onto the street, my head already turned to search for Ricky’s truck, when an idea tugged at my brain. I stood there for a long second, fighting an internal battle, wondering what the consequences might be if