What they were tryna do? They attacked us. That guy tried to hem me up. You’re not worried about that?”
“I am. Dr. Grant is gonna handle it. I’ll tell my parents later, but if I tell them now, it’s over. I can’t go back to the way things were. I can’t go back to not having you as a friend.” The tears came in a rush. “The house, the garden, the way my parents have been feeling . . . it all makes me feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. I need to stay. Please, Karter. I need you to understand.”
A low groan echoed somewhere in the dark, and a tapping sound drew my attention to the passenger-side window. Some of the smaller trees along the road had leaned over as far as their trunks would allow. Their branches elongated, scraping against my window like fingernails. I glanced back to see if Dr. Grant had noticed, but she was staring into her lap, her face illuminated by the light from her cell phone. I touched the glass and took a steadying breath. The trees righted themselves.
Karter looked at me, his jaw set. “You gotta promise me you’ll let me know what that lady—Dr. Grant—finds out, because I’m worried. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t want you to leave either. In case you couldn’t tell, I don’t have a lot of friends. I didn’t think it was a big deal till I met you and realized how much I needed one.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “I promise I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Karter squeezed my hand back, then drove me home.
CHAPTER 22
Dr. Grant followed us to the end of my driveway. Karter dropped me off and watched me go inside. I locked the door and quickly walked past the front room where Mo and Mom were playing an aggressive game of Uno, hoping they wouldn’t ask me about our evening.
“Skip. Draw Four. Skip you again. Reverse back to me and BAM! Wild card! The color is blue.”
“You can’t play all those cards in one turn,” Mom said as I slid past them. She waved in my direction but kept her gaze on Mo.
Mo smirked. “House rules say I can.”
“House rules say you’re a cheater.”
“Never!” Mo said laughing. “You just mad. It’s okay to lose sometimes, babe. I still love you.”
I went to my room and changed into a pair of sweats, threw a bonnet on, and laid across my bed. I tried my best to section off what had happened at the theater from everything else that was going on. The secrets were piling up, and they were starting to feel heavy.
My gaze wandered to the top of the armoire that sat near the door. A triangle of paper stuck out over the top edge. I got up and stood on my tippy-toes to reach whatever it was. I pulled down a square book, covered in a thick layer of dust. I could tell by its shape and the crinkly sound its pages made that it was a photo album. Pressed between pages of sticky transparent plastic were pictures of a young girl, probably eleven or twelve, with thick black hair and big brown eyes. She wore glasses that were too big for her face. In one photo, she was sitting under a tree with her face turned up to the sun and her eyes closed. The grass all around her was a vibrant, almost unnatural, shade of green. In another, her eyes were open wide, a big grin stretched across her face as another person pushed a piece of cake into her mouth. A colorful birthday banner hung behind them.
I flipped through the other pages, and the girl got older with each turn. In her late teens, she wore her hair in braids, traded her glasses for contacts, and looked much more serious and focused. In another photo she sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of this same house, a potted bush of hogweed leaning toward her, its white flowers curling around the runners of the chair and around her ankles.
I flipped to the last page and pulled a small portrait of her from behind the plastic. She’d taken down her braids, her natural hair curling out from a colorful head scarf, and she’d started wearing her glasses again. She wore a long blue dress, and she smiled so warmly I could feel it through the picture. I turned