Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,88
be more understanding of letting us spend time together, or if they’d go out of their way to make sure we have some space from each other. My parents would probably switch rooms with Asher and become my new roomies. They wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
But Asher being gone is a good excuse to spend some time with Kara. I’m fried from my day on the river, so we’re sitting in a shady spot on the deck.
“Still no news?” Kara’s voice is even and almost uninterested.
“About?”
She raises her eyes and looks toward the house, as if Asher just stands there at all times, like a sentinel at our door.
I shake my head, but the words—the stories—are filling me up, trying to burst out of me like an overfilled balloon. I don’t know what’s stopping me, but all I can do is shake my head.
Kara and I paint rocks and talk about college—when we’ll only be an hour apart instead of four—and around lunchtime my mom sits down with us.
“You want to go to the river this afternoon?” Mom picks up one of my rocks and sets it down next to another one. A large daisy, and a cluster of three little ones. She sets another covered in vines and leaves next to them.
“I swam this morning, but maybe tomorrow?” My mom knows I swam this morning, so it’s weird that she would offer to take me to the river.
She nods and digs around in the box I keep my rocks in, pulling out a few more and making her own little rock collage of flowers, leaves, and birds. “I’m going to get my glass and join you out here,” she says as she gets up from the table and disappears back into the house.
Five minutes later, she has a small pattern laid out on the table, and pieces of colorful glass cluttered on top of it. Kara and I paint and she fidgets pieces together until they resemble a bird the size of my hand.
“Things seem to be going well with you and Asher.”
Mom’s words make my stomach jump. What does she know? What has she seen? Does she somehow know what happened last night in Asher’s bed? Or on the river? Oh my god, does she own some kind of spy-drone? Everything around me has blurred into a swirl of panic.
Kara’s trying hard not to smile.
“I’m glad the two of you are getting along,” Mom says.
Getting along. Not kissing, or sneaking into each other’s rooms to do who-knows-what. Getting along.
“Yep.” It’s all I can manage in the aftermath of thinking my mother somehow knows all of my dirtiest secrets. The imaginary ants crawl off of me and scatter to the floor.
“Well I’m glad Greg got through to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you feel guilty about the fish.” Mom pushes a bright red piece of glass into a corner. “You think getting kicked out of the houses is your fault. And don’t get me wrong, you’re not blameless. Not even close to it.” It’s been weeks, but her voice sounds irritated again, just talking about it. “But the pranks have never seemed like you.” She picks up a piece of glass and moves it to the side. “And I know something happened that night before the fish.” At this, Kara’s eyes snap from her paints to mine. She knows what happened the night before. My date with Caleb.
“I could hear you in your room doing god knows what…” Mom looks to me and raises her brows.
“Mayonnaise.” I toss one of my rocks back into the box to keep my hands busy. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Ugh.” Mom shakes her head. “Well, after the fish incident I told Greg he better talk to Asher, tell him to fix things with you. I’m glad it seems to have worked.”
Mom is beaming with pride for being the fixer she prides herself on being. I, on the other hand, feel like I may throw up. And it must show on my face, because when Mom excuses herself for another drink it’s not two seconds before Kara says, “Now do you have anything to tell me?”
I do. I tell her everything. And as the words rush out of me all of our moments click together like puzzle pieces in my mind.
Asher
When we get back from the fish town, Sidney isn’t in the house, or on the deck or the dock. The only reason I find her is because I call her and