“I mean, it’s not like he gave you any sort of explanation.” It had been over two months, but I was still annoyed about this. You did not get to dump my best friend in a mid-priced Mexican restaurant without any explanation. You just didn’t.
“I’m not going to the play,” Stevie said, glancing out the window, a note of finality in her voice. “So it’s a nonissue.”
“Good,” I said. I was heartened by how definitive she sounded. It had been clear to me recently that she was finally getting over being broken up with, and I didn’t think it would be the best call to start hanging out with Beckett again. “I don’t like that he’s suddenly doing this now. Do you think he’s having second thoughts?”
“I…,” Stevie started, then looked down, her hair falling over her face like a curtain and blocking it from view. “I don’t know.”
As I took a breath to reply, I happened to glance up and felt my heart stop. Kathie Alden, one of my mother’s friends, was stepping onto the train and looking around for a seat.
I turned away and ducked down, heart thumping, pretending to be pulling on my ankle boots, praying to any deity currently available that she hadn’t seen me.
“What is it?” Stevie asked at a normal volume. “Kat? What’s—”
“Shh!” I hissed at her. Stevie ducked down too so that our faces were level.
“What’s going on?” she whispered. “Are we about to get whacked?”
I turned my head slightly and saw Kathie stop at a two-seater halfway down the car and take her coat off. I straightened up and sat back against the seat, slouching down so that my head couldn’t be seen. “My mom’s friend,” I murmured, and Stevie’s eyes went wide and she slouched down too.
“Oh noooooo.”
“Exactly.”
I swallowed hard, trying to get my heart rate to return to normal. I was suddenly aware that I was sweating in really awkward places, like the top of my lip and in between my shoulder blades.
“Did she see you?” Stevie asked, still talking just above a murmur.
“I don’t think so,” I said with more confidence than I currently felt. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to marshal my thoughts, but it was proving difficult. All I could think was that if Kathie Alden saw me—and told my mother—I would be in such trouble.
The reality of what might actually happen if my parents found out made me feel dizzy and slightly vertigo-y, like I’d just looked over the edge of a canyon and seen how far the drop was. If they found out I’d lied to them—and then went into the city, alone, at night, with Stevie… I shuddered even thinking about it.
The conductor announced that the Hartfield stop was upcoming, and Stevie nudged my foot with hers. “Let’s move cars,” she said, her lips barely moving.
“You don’t think it’s better to stay put?”
Stevie shook her head. “Safer this way,” she said. “Just move slowly and don’t look back.”
I was tempted to make a joke about Lot’s wife—or Oasis—but knew it wasn’t the time. As the train slowed to a stop and the station was announced, I got up, gathering my coat and looking resolutely straight ahead. Knowing that Stevie was behind me, I stepped out of the train onto the Hartfield platform. We ran for the next car up, stepping back onto the train again just as the doors were sliding shut.
I let out a sigh of relief as the train started to move again, grateful that nobody had collected our tickets yet, since it was pretty much impossible to change seats once that happened.
This car was a little more crowded than the one we’d just left, and we ended up in a two-seater with a toddler’s face peeking over the back of the seat in front of ours. As soon as we got close, she ducked down, and I just hoped she’d be quiet for the next forty minutes or so.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids—I was just burned out on them. I’d babysat for years, starting as a mother’s helper when I was twelve, until this fall, when I’d quit. I told my parents that it was just too much to take on senior year. But truthfully, I had hit my limit. My former clients still called—and some even called my mom, which felt extra sneaky—but even though I missed the money, I’d held the line. I was retired.