Moment of Truth - Kasie West Page 0,80

usually only seniors win.”

My dad chuckled a bit as he shut the door. “I’m not surprised.” He reached behind my mom and squeezed my shoulder. I winced but gritted through the pain.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Then my mom told him everything we’d talked about and finished by playing him the tape. He smiled through tears. Then we went and played Eric’s music loudly while we visited his grave in the dark.

As we walked back to the truck, my dad ahead of us, I looked at my mom and said, “You know I don’t expect you to just stop doing all your charity work, right? I know that makes you happy.”

“I know. But I need to find a balance. A healthy balance. I’ll work on it. I promise.”

“Me too.” Because I needed a healthy balance as well. Robert had been right. I had been too focused on one thing. But he didn’t know why. Jackson had figured that out. I was competing. Competing with my dead brother. Now I needed to learn to swim for me. I touched my shoulder. If that was still a possibility.

My dad slowed until he was walking beside me and draped his arm around my neck. “Should we go get some Froyo?”

“Yes,” both my mom and I said together.

Thirty-Nine

Amelia had checked on me approximately fifty times since Saturday. Every message some variation of the words You good?

It’s like she thought my parents had stolen my phone and were answering texts while I rotted in the basement as punishment for what I’d done. I didn’t blame her. I thought I’d be in bigger trouble too. I did get a stern lecture about taking the truck without asking and my dad told me I had to visit several junkyards to help him find a replacement bumper. We had talked as a family and were still trying to decide what to do with the truck. My mom was all for me driving it. My dad thought we should sell it and I kept flipping back and forth between the two. I wanted to take my time. I didn’t want to sell it and regret it later. For now, I decided to continue riding to school with Amelia and use it only when I really needed to go somewhere . . . like to get an apple pie.

Without Jackson, apparently. I hadn’t heard from him since our fight. I’d thought about reaching out to him, but along with being sad about what had happened between us, I found myself angry. Angry at how he had acted. At how he’d made everything about him on the hardest day of my life.

My shoulders were still bothering me and that terrified me. I couldn’t lose swimming over this too. For that I decided to take a long break. My mom was going to take me to the doctor the following week. But there was no harm in a break. At least that’s what I told myself over and over.

Amelia pulled up to my house Monday morning and took in the now-empty spot where the truck used to be. My dad had hauled away the platform Sunday. The grass beneath it was dead. I climbed in her car.

“You good?” she asked.

I smiled. “For the fifty-first time, yes, I’m good.”

“Why are you not grounded for twenty years?”

“Guilt.”

She laughed. “Ah. You get the guilt-parenting? How have you worked this to your advantage?”

“I didn’t get grounded.” I hoped I’d find a new normal soon with my parents because as much as I didn’t want to be in trouble, I didn’t want them to feel guilty forever and it seemed like that was going to be the case for a while. They were walking on eggshells around me and it wasn’t good.

“Oh, Hadley, come on. Years of neglect. You need to collect the guilt-parenting perks while they last. They’ll be gone soon.”

I shoved her arm.

“How are you and Jackson?”

My heart clenched. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“He hasn’t called begging for forgiveness?”

“No.” He’d erased every trace of me from his life. He’d walked away. He was done.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” But I wasn’t sure it was.

Amelia and I walked our separate ways to first period. I needed to drop by my locker and pick up a book. My locker was outside the B building, fourth row down. Today the row was fairly empty. A blond girl at the end was piling books from her backpack into her locker. She gave me a smile as she exited. I turned the dial