Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,87
better than my mother, tell me that again how she sucks. Please, I love hearing that.”
This conversation is speeding out from under me.
“Angel. I’m really sorry about what I wrote. I’m really sorry I got carried away last night. I’m sorry that I tried too hard and I’m sorry that I have hid things about my past I’m not proud of. I’m asking you a favor.”
“What.” Her arms are crossed, her ankles crossed. She couldn’t be more closed if she were behind a steel door.
“Just let me be the one to tell him.”
“Fine.” She stands up roughly, so that the chair clatters to the floor. “It won’t matter. It’ll all work out the same in the end.”
Footsteps on the stairs. Her parents coming down. Angel announces, ‘I’m going to study my lines,” and sweeps past us all grandly, taking the stairs two at a time.
I look at Michael. “What did he say?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t feel like repeating it all now. You better go upstairs and rest.”
Thus dismissed, I drag myself back up the stairs.
Dylan’s door is open. I can see him stretched out on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
I haven’t properly greeted him. Whatever else happens, I want him to know I’m happy he’s okay.
I knock softly, though the door is open.
He shrugs, so I take this as assent and come in. There’s nowhere to sit really. He shifts his legs on the bed, making room for me at the edge.
“I’m really glad you’re okay.”
He stares up at the ceiling. “Y-y-you read my e-mail.”
“Sorry. But we had to.” I try for some lightheartedness, but I’m also curious. “You made it pretty tough to track you down. We never did find your laptop. Are you in training for the CIA?”
He shakes his head. “Embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
He sits up on his elbows and looks at me, his face saying, You’ve got to be kidding me.
I can’t help but smile sadly. “You’re fourteen. You’re allowed some embarrassing stuff.”
I put my hand on his ankle. Awkward gesture, but it’s a part of him I can reach without being invasive, intruding. “I wish you’d talked to me. About whatever it was.”
He shakes his head.
“You know I love you kids, right?”
He squints at me.
“Really. I do. If you hadn’t come home . . . It’s not just because I love your father. I want you to know that.”
“Okay,” he says. “I know.”
I take my hand off his ankle, the moment gone. I should have told Angel I loved her, but it would have been harder to say. She would have noticed, and it would have made everything worse, though that hardly seems possible.
“You gonna practice at all today?”
He smiles now, a real one. Nods. “Got time?”
“You bet.”
He hops off his bed and gets his saxophone case from the corner of the room. I scoot back on his bed so I’m propped against the wall as he tunes up.
The sax is going to destroy my throbbing head. But I’ll take it. For this kind of moment, it’s worth it.
Chapter 38
Dylan
I totally should have talked to Casey.
She’s sitting against the wall in my room, obviously hung-over, but volunteering for me to play my sax in here.
I’m all tuned up, and then, from memory, I start playing the solo for last year’s band concert, when I was in the school I liked.
All my muscles start uncurling. Over the top of my sax I can see she’s got her eyes closed, and she’s holding her temples, but she’s also smiling.
It never occurred to me to talk to her about stuff. I thought about my mom, and realized she’d flip out, and my dad wouldn’t listen, he’d just say, “Excalibur Academy is a wonderful program,” repeating exactly what Grandpa Turner said. Like test scores and college placement rates are the only things that matter in a school.
I don’t care if there was a gun at my old school. It’s not like anyone was gonna shoot me at lunch. That’s a whole other crowd I have nothing to do with, but I loved the band, and I had friends there.
At this new school they all make these, like, wide circles around me like I’m invisible. Not to be mean, really, but they were all friends before I got there. And then my best friend from my old school quit talking to me and told me, “Dude, you’re trying too hard,” when I sent him some messages. I still don’t know what that was about.