out onto the sidewalk from the side gate in the backyard. As long as I’m home by five a.m. I should be able to sneak back in, and no one will even know I was gone.
Sunday, June 15
I am so scared. I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep. It’s almost five a.m. I took a shower after I got home, but even the hot water washing away all the sweat and smoke wouldn’t wash away this feeling in my chest. I keep checking my phone to see if Carson or Kelly has texted me any updates on Jess, but there’s nothing.
I’m not high anymore, but I still feel a little spaced out. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to try to write all of this down. I want it to make sense and it doesn’t yet in my head. Maybe I can put the words down on paper and the whole story will come together, but all I can see in my head is Jess on that stretcher. I guess I should start at the beginning.
Jess drove.
She stopped to pick up Kelly and Carson, then they came to my place and parked at the end of the block like I’d told them to. Mom and Dad had gone to bed around ten thirty, and Ashley had been in her room with the door closed all night, just like I’d guessed.
Of course, I hit every single squeaky stair and floorboard on my way through the house to the garage, and the hinges on that door squealed like a cat being run over by an eighteen wheeler. I stood still, heart racing, listening for any sound from my parents’ bedroom. Then I stepped into the garage and swung the door closed as quickly as possible without slamming it. I was panting as I slipped out the back door of the garage and ran across the damp grass of the backyard to the side gate, where I let myself out onto the sidewalk.
I felt giddy once I got to the street. The moon was remarkably bright, and I could see Jess’s car at the end of the block. I started laughing as the back door of the car swung open and I jumped in next to Carson, who immediately wrapped both arms around me and kissed me for a long time as Jess pulled away from the curb, shrieking and hooting with Kelly.
I was lost in Carson’s kiss. He smelled like warm brown sugar and his peppery cologne, and underneath his peppermint gum there was just the hint of a cigarette—but not in a gross ashtray sort of way; it was smoky in a sexy, bad-boy sort of way. When we came up for air, I filled everybody in on my incarceration. Jess agreed that it sounded pretty terrible and Kelly couldn’t believe that I had kissed Mr. Peterson on the nose. She kept giggling about it, then getting control of herself, then collapsing into laughter again in the front seat. Carson said that it was “epic” and kept apologizing for taking off with Jess and Kelly. I assured him that there was nothing he could’ve done, and if he’d been there he’d have just gotten busted, too.
When we got to the park where the old abandoned swimming pool was, there were cars parked all up and down the road leading up to the entrance. Carson said it looked like we’d have to walk, but Jess said SCREW THAT and drove right up to the fence around the pool. We could see the lights flashing from the scaffolding rigged around the pool, and there was a line of people at the door to the old locker-room entrance. Jess drove around to the opposite side of the pool from where the line was, pulled over the curb between a couple of trees, and parked in the grass next to some picnic tables. We all started laughing and Carson just shook his head and told Jess she was off the hook.
It was really dark in the car. The trees towering over us blocked out most of the light from the moon and the flashing lights over the empty pool. Carson was texting Reid, who was apparently just meeting us there. He was walking all the way up from where he’d parked on the street and he finally found Jess’s car. He tapped on Carson’s window and then Carson slid over to my side of the backseat and opened the door. Reid got into the car