Ben nods a thank-you.
He waves the other half of his turkey sandwich under my nose. “Are you sure you don’t want it?” My stomach betrays me by growling. I accept it. Ben goes to the sink to wash his plate.
I nibble at the sandwich and look around. I see everything differently now. It isn’t a small, sparsely furnished space. It’s an achievement, something to be viewed with pride.
I turn around and smile at Ben. He smiles back. A pulse of electricity passes between us. He blushes and looks away.
I slide my hand over the bookcase and slip his lighter into my pocket.
So Ben has a past. Who am I to judge him?
Ten minutes later, Ben retakes his spot in front of the register. I wave goodbye and let my eyes linger on him longer than is comfortable for two people who have only shared a sandwich. Then I step outside the coffee shop and sigh. I’m not ready to go back to the Los Ranchitos.
My phone bleeps. I fish it out of my pocket.
It’s a text from Kara. A simple Hey.
I know more of Ben’s story, but I still don’t know how Kara would feel about the maybe-flirtation Ben and I have going on. That’s really all it is right now—a maybe. I could see it being more.
The thought makes me feel hot and shivery and excited and anxious all at the same time, like lighting a match.
I plunge my fingers into my pocket and feel the lighter, heavy and cold between them. It centers me.
I text Kara back.
Just had lunch with Ben.
My phone immediately rings. I wait to pick up until right before it goes to voice mail. I don’t know what she’s going to say. But if she tells me to stay away from Ben, it’s too late.
“Hi,” I say, my voice chipper.
“Do you want to meet somewhere?” Kara asks. “Just you and me,” she quickly adds.
“Sure. Is that going to be okay? Your parents are all right with that?”
“They’re working today. It will just be for a little while. They’ll never know.” She pauses. “I have something to tell you.”
“Okay. I’m at the coffee shop right now.”
“No. Not there,” she says. My heart lurches. She’s going to tell me something awful about Ben. “There’s a park a couple blocks away.”
Kara gives me directions, and I start walking. The streets are quiet on this Saturday afternoon, but I feel like there’s someone behind me.
I spin around, expecting to see Allen pretending to be a cop or Cam in his blue coat, but no one’s there.
I look back three or four more times. I keep my hand on Ben’s lighter. Rubbing my fingers over his initials makes me feel guilty for taking it. But I need it. I need it more than he does.
At the park, the grass is still brown from the winter, but little purple crocuses line the sidewalk. I sit down on a newly painted bench next to a pot of blooming daffodils. The play structure is also freshly painted in bright primary colors. It feels happy here. Like a place you would want to hang out.
Kara pulls up and parks along the street behind the bench a few minutes later. She’s wearing giant dark glasses and a baseball cap, like she’s a movie star who doesn’t want to get recognized.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“I’m okay.” She glances over her shoulder and opens her mouth to say something. But I put my hand up to stop her.
“I like Ben,” I say. She closes her mouth. “I know he has a past, but I don’t care. But I do care about you. About our friendship. If something happened between you two—”
“No,” she cuts in. Even under her dark glasses, Kara looks stunned. “You should like Ben. He deserves to be with someone like you.”
I feel the lighter in my pocket, and I have a moment’s doubt. Does he deserve to be with someone like me?
Kara lowers her voice and looks away. “I want him to be happy.”
Something definitely happened between them.
“Are you sure? I mean, I don’t even know if he likes me back. But if something did happen between me and Ben…”
She nods, but I don’t have her complete attention. Her sunglass-covered eyes drift over the edge of the park behind me. She tenses and stands up quickly. “I should go. My parents will be home soon.” She takes off fast toward her car.
“Wait,” I call. “What were you going to tell me?”
She gets to her car and freezes in place. I jog up behind her. Stuck under her windshield wiper is a photo of fuzzy, black-and-white lumps—something that would be recognizable to anyone who has a sister who is ten years younger and saw a similar ultrasound photo stuck to the fridge for months.
Kara grabs it and stuffs it under her arm as she fumbles with her keys. “It’s probably a political ad or something from a church,” she says before I can ask. I glance toward another car parked on the street. There’s nothing under the wipers.
She’s lying. It was left for her to find.
Kara slams the car door.
“See you on Monday?” I yell through the window, but she doesn’t respond before peeling away from the curb.
The things in her locker, that ultrasound photo, the way she’s been acting.
I’m trying to be her friend, but she’s making it really hard with all her secrets and lies.
Plus, she doesn’t realize who she’s lying to.
* * *
—
Later, when I get off the bus at Henderson’s, I see a car like Kara’s in the parking lot. But it can’t be hers. After the way she looked at the park, I figured she would go straight home. And there’s no way her parents would let her come to this side of town.
I’m curious—and ready to straight-up confront her about what she’s hiding from me. It’s probably not even her car, but since I need to refill my snack stash, I go inside.
The clerk I usually see is manning the front checkout. She gives me a wave. I wave back and grab a basket. On my way to the snacks, I see a cashier in the separate liquor section resting his chin in his hands on the counter. That must be the famous Joey the kids at school say will sell anything to anyone.
Henderson’s doesn’t have a great selection of snacks. So I have to get the same ones over and over again. Ro likes the chocolate-covered granola bars the best, so I dump two boxes into my basket. It’s my good deed for the day.
“Kara?” It comes from the front of the store. I dash to the end of the aisle and see that the clerk has come out from behind the register. Her hands are clasped under her chin. “Is that you?”
The girl in front of her, who is definitely Kara, shakes her head. She has her arms wrapped around a paper bag from the liquor section and a receipt in her hand. At the register there, Joey leans way over to see what’s going on.
Kara’s buying booze now? She doesn’t hold the bag sheepishly, like someone who got caught on their way to a party. She clings to the bag like it’s a lifeline—something she’ll never give up.
She looks terrified.
“No,” Kara whispers, and hightails it out of the store, her bag clinking with each step.
I should go after her. If whatever is going on with her has gotten this bad, she needs help. I drop my basket and move toward the door, but I’m too slow. Her car is already pulling away.
I retrieve my basket, toss in a final package of Oreos, and take it up to the front. The clerk is standing in the doorway watching Kara drive away.
She looks at me waiting with my food. “Sorry. I thought that was a girl I used to know. A long time ago.”
I don’t want to say something that will out Kara. I fake a chuckle. “She must have one of those faces.”
The clerk nods. “That must be it.” But her eyes move back to the window and the now-empty parking lot.
On Monday morning, Kara isn’t in school. But this time, inste
ad of ignoring my texts, she writes me back and asks me to pick up her homework. She still wants to talk.
I can’t concentrate on anything. I want to know what’s up with Kara, even if it is none of my business. Someone’s been leaving her notes, that’s all I know. Maybe someone is bullying her and she’s too embarrassed to tell me?
And I still want to know her story with Ben.
Ben. He occupied my thoughts all weekend. I’m afraid he got the wrong idea from my reaction when he told me about his past. I don’t care who he used to be. I was uncomfortable because I’m not like him. I’m not shiny and new and better.
I’ll have to find a way to tell him that his past doesn’t matter to me. Tell him that I hope we can be friends—more than friends.
I hid the lighter in my bottom dresser drawer. I’m not going to use it. I want to be better for Ben. Be the kind of person he is; one he deserves to be with. Next time I’m at his apartment—and I really hope there is a next time—I’ll put the lighter back like I never took it.
* * *
—
Cam shows up after school, just like he’s supposed to. He’s brought Ro with him—probably not by choice. He stares straight ahead while she chats away at him.
Kara’s homework and books are in my arms. I was going to have Cam drop me off at Kara’s house so she and I could talk, but I can’t do that with Ro here. Ro and I are real friends now. She’s never outright said anything, but I think she’s a little jealous of Kara.
I open the truck door. “We’re going for ice cream,” Ro says. “We can have all the toppings we want.” She gives Cam a challenging glare.
“We have to run an errand first.” I maneuver myself and the stack into the truck and pull out my phone. “I need to drop these off at Kara’s. She texted me the address.”
Cam looks surprised. Then his entire face changes. It’s softer, concerned. “Kara? What’s wrong with her?”
“You know her?” Of course he knows her. She had something going on with his cousin. From his dramatic change of expression, I wonder if Cam and Kara might also have a history.
He shrugs and sits up straighter. He pulls away from the curb with a stomp on the gas. His expression is a mixture of worried, excited, and confused. All part of the puzzle that I’m not getting the pieces to.
Cam doesn’t ask for Kara’s address. He seems to know where he’s going. “How do you know Kara?” I ask again, hoping for some details. Details about anything. Him. Ben. The past.
“She lives down the street. We used to hang out.” His lips close. That’s all he’s going to say.
We pull up to a swanky gated neighborhood. Cam punches in the code to make the wrought-iron gate slide open. This is my first time coming to the hills. It looks so different from the area around the Los Ranchitos. The houses are giant and surrounded by lots of land dotted with native plants and cacti.
Cam pulls into the driveway of a two-story, light stuccoed house with a red-tile roof. The front yard is covered with pink rocks and artful, scraggly bushes.
I slide out of the truck. Ro follows. “This will only take a second,” I say, hoping she will climb back in.
“I never get to visit the fancy houses. I want to see the inside.”
“But—”
She’s too fast for me. She’s already ringing the doorbell.
No one answers. I stand behind Ro with the books. “Try again.”
This time there’s movement in the peephole, like someone is looking out at us, but the door doesn’t open. I knock.
“Kara, it’s Jenny. I have your homework.”
The dead bolt disengages. Kara opens the door with a fake smile on her face. She looks like crap. Her hair is all over the place. She’s wearing sweats with a hole in one of the arms. Her eyes dart to Ro.
I hold up the books and give her an apologetic smile. We won’t be talking today. “I have these for you.”
Ro pushes past Kara and makes her way inside.
“Ro,” I snap under my breath, then look back at Kara. “Sorry. That’s Ro.” I point behind me at the truck. “She came with Cam to pick me up from school.”
“Where’s your room?” Ro asks.
“Ro, we can’t stay. We’re getting ice cream, remember?”
“It’s okay,” Kara says, still with the fake smile. “My room’s upstairs.”
We all tromp up the stairs. Kara’s room isn’t as nice as I would have thought—it certainly isn’t as fancy as mine. I put her homework down on her blue-and-white-striped comforter.
Ro wanders around the room picking up random objects and putting them back down again. Kara watches her.
Tacked to the wall is a wooden sign that says “Friends.” It looks like it was hand-painted by a young child. Ro slowly runs her finger over it. A weird tension fills the room.
“We should go,” I say. Neither girl pays attention to me.
Ro picks up a candle and takes a deep sniff. She wrinkles her nose and looks at Kara. “Huh. Citrusy.”
Kara’s face goes pale. Her knees buckle. “Are you okay?” I ask.
She pushes me out of the way and runs down the hall to the bathroom. She slams the door.
Even from her room, I can hear her gagging. “I guess she’s still sick. We should go before we catch something,” I say to Ro.
Ro opens Kara’s jewelry box and peers inside. That’s the last straw. I grab her by the arm and pull her into the hallway. I point her to the stairs and push.
“Fine. I’m going,” she protests.
“I hope you feel better,” I call to the bathroom. “Text me if you need anything.” I hope Kara understands that for what it is: Another invitation to talk. To tell me what’s going on.
I close her front door behind us. Ro slides into the truck next to Cam and points to the house. “She was puking.”
Cam grips his door handle like he’s going to get out. But he doesn’t. Once I’m inside, he starts the truck and puts it in reverse.
Another day with zero answers.
Ro claps her hands. “Ice cream time!”
* * *
—
Today I am one of those giggly girls who tries to get a boy’s attention. It’s a new thing. I’m not sure I like it.
Ben wipes down the table next to me. I have my books spread out like I’m doing work. Homework is my cover story. I told Cam I couldn’t concentrate at the Los Ranchitos. He agreed to drop me off at the coffee shop after school and pick me up later. But I think he’s figured out that I like Ben.
I watch the muscles in Ben’s arms move back and forth. He looks up and smiles. I do not giggle—but I feel my face go red.
“Ben?” I ask like I need to get his attention—like his attention isn’t already completely focused on me. “I wanted to tell you that I don’t care about your past.” Once the words are out of my mouth, I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. But then the weight moves to my stomach when he doesn’t respond.
I look down at my books. That was an okay thing to say, right? Is he going to walk away?
The chair pulls out across from me. Ben sits down.
“I know,” he says matter-of-factly.
I look up at him. “You do?”
He smiles. “I know because you’re here.”
And just like those giggly girls, I melt into a puddle in my chair.
This feels so right. When I’m with Ben, it’s like my scar doesn’t exist. I feel like someone who doesn’t have to hide. Someone who wants to be better.
My phone bleeps. I glance at it and see a text from Kara. Ben’s still across from me, his eyes still staring into mine. I don’t want this to end, but I know Kara needs me.
“It’s my friend.” I point at the phone. “She’s having a hard time.” I can’t bring myself to tell him it’s Kara. I know he�
�ll be concerned.
I don’t want to share him.
He stands up as Cam walks through the door. I’m sure my face is still flushed. Ben is smiling more brightly than usual.
For just a second, I think I see a hint of a smile on Cam’s face.
* * *
—
I read Kara’s text in the truck on the way back to the Los Ranchitos. It’s a question about our history assignment. That’s it. Nothing personal. No hints at her secret.
I turn to Cam. “How well do you know Kara?”
He shakes his head.
“You don’t really know her, or you don’t want to tell me?”
He throws his hands up in exasperation. “It’s been a long time, okay?”
He looks away and blinks hard, like he’s feeling something big, but with Cam, it’s impossible to say what.
“Okay,” I say softly.
Cam drops me off at the gate. As I walk through the construction zone, my mind is so busy swirling with thoughts about Kara that it takes me a second to realize that someone is standing in front of my door. He turns around.
You have got to be kidding me.
“Hi, Allen.” I want to tell him to go away and leave me alone. But I can’t. I don’t want to do anything that seems suspicious. He still has that police radio on his hip.
“Um, hi.” He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. He holds up a book with the other. “I saw this and thought of you.” His face goes bright red.
“How did you know I live here?” My adrenaline is rising again. Who is this guy? And just how serious is he taking this wannabe-cop thing? Did he track his “arsonist” to the Los Ranchitos? To my room?
Allen laughs. “Everyone in town knows about the girl living in the motel.”
Great.
But it’s also a relief. He isn’t here on “official” business.
I step forward and take the book. It’s a field guide to birds.
“Thanks.” I realize that I’m holding the book between two fingers like it might bite.
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