Arcadia's Gift - By Jesi Lea Ryan Page 0,34

around in secret for a while. Now that she can’t hide the evidence, Chad’s been bragging about it all over the school.”

“God, I can’t imagine being pregnant at fifteen! I sort of feel sorry for her, but seriously, who doesn’t know about condoms these days?”

“My parents probably think I don’t,” she said with a chuckle.

I grinned.

“So…how are you feeling?” Bronwyn asked.

I held a spoon heaping with potatoes and gravy in front of me, turned it over and watch the contents plop back into the cardboard container.

“I don’t know. I mean, sometimes it seems to be getting a little easier, but then something will remind me of Lony and it all comes back. My mother is a completely different person. I can’t be near her without getting completely bummed out.”

She nodded and sipped from her Dr. Pepper.

“I’ve been trying to get out of the house a little more. Actually…there’s this new kid at school…Bryan Sullivan? I met him right before Lony died. Anyway, he’s sort of been helping me a lot.”

My friend’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What do you mean by helping?”

I filled her in about Bryan’s brother passing away and how he’d started calling me. I even told her about him being there for me the morning I tried to come back to school.

“So, do you like him? I mean, like a boyfriend?”

I blushed deeply and played in the mashed potatoes with my spoon. “I don’t know. He’s really a good guy. Cute. Seems smart. Plays guitar which is totally cool. But, I don’t know, it’s just not a good time for me right now to think about boys like that.”

She agreed. “I bet it’s nice to have someone to talk to who’s been through it.”

“Yeah… Oh, hey! You didn’t work at the shelter yesterday did you?”

“No. I’m not scheduled until Saturday morning. Why?”

I told her about finding the tumor in Lucy’s chest. I figured she’d hear about it from Gina or someone eventually.

“Weird,” she said, with a hint of skepticism creeping into her voice. “There has to be an explanation for it.”

“I know, but I don’t know what it could be. Maybe Dr. Kristy will figure something out.”

We finished our food and dumped the garbage in the trash can. We had time to kill before she had to go to church, so we stopped by the music store in the mall. As I was thumbing through the rack of t-shirts, I found one with two cartoon guys paddling a canoe down a river. The caption above the first guy’s head read, “Paddle faster. I hear banjos.” I bought one for Bryan, getting the guy behind the counter to help me guess the right size.

After leaving the store, I began to worry that Bryan would find my buying him a gift weird. I almost turned back to return it, but I decided to hold on to it and give it to him only if the right time came. If I chickened out, I could always give it to Aaron for Christmas.

Bronwyn dropped me on the curb outside my house. The evening air took on an autumn chill as night descended. My house was dark and foreboding. I checked the time on my cell phone. Only 6:20. The thought of spending the long evening in the House of Horrors made my stomach sick. I mentally ticked through my options then flicked out my cell phone to call my dad.

“Hi, honey,” Dad greeted when he picked up. “What’s up?”

“Um…I was wondering if I could come by and see your place.”

“Sure! Come on over. Want me to order some Chinese for us?”

I wasn’t that hungry since I’d eaten at Culvers only a couple hours earlier, but Dad sounded so happy by my visit, I told him to order me a couple veggie eggrolls.

When I hung up, I went straight to my car parked across the street, without stopping in the house first.

I parked behind my father’s truck in front of the brick eight-plex apartment building. My parents own a few different rental properties around town. Mom would find deals on investment property and Dad would fix the places up, so they could sell them for a profit. When the real estate market tanked a couple of years ago, they decided to hold onto the places they owned and rent them out, rather than take a loss on the sales. They purchased this particular building the summer after I finished eighth grade. My dad paid us kids to paint all eight apartments and