26

At nine o’clock, Mom woke me up. It was already bright out; for a second I thought I’d overslept.

“It’s Saturday,” she said. “I made breakfast. Come eat before I go to sleep.”

I stumbled out of bed and plopped myself down at the kitchen table. She’d made pancakes. When she served me, she paused for a second, looking at something on my neck.

We sat there eating in silence, but something was on her mind. Finally, she said, “What’s on your neck?”

I touched it. “What?”

“Looks like a hicky,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

My face felt hot. “I probably bruised myself when I fell the other day.”

I should’ve had a better comeback. “I used to fall too, when your dad first dated me.”

“It’s not like that.”

She sighed. “Well, it was going to happen, so . . .”

She wasn’t mad, maybe a bit sad. “One day, I’ll wake up and have missed all your teen years.” She put her hand on my arm. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

Probably not anything. “Yeah . . .,” I said.

“Even boys. Especially boys.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m almost sixteen, Mom. I’m not a baby.”

She nodded. “I know. I was talking to your dad yesterday. I was thinking about inviting him here for Thanksgiving.”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” I said.

“I think he wants to come. He feels like he’s missing out on your teen years too.”

I almost laughed. “He can have them.”

“Don’t say that. I mean, I know it can be hard. There’s no doubt, you wind up doing some crazy . . . stuff. You’re going to mess up. That’s almost your job as a teen, to mess up. It’s our job to make sure you survive those years. He just wants to be involved.”

She didn’t know the half of it. “I’ll survive, Mom. You’ll see.”

She stroked my hair. “I hope so.”

“Me too.”

After Mom went to sleep, it was almost 10:30. I sat on the couch, reminding myself that there was no way I was gonna go down to the library. No way she’d be bailing me out of jail tonight.

My heart jumped around like I’d just downed four Red Bulls. I tried breathing slowly, closing my eyes the way those yoga people do. Breathe in, breathe out. Let go.

Something skittered across the window like hard rain. I opened an eye. The sky was gray, but it wasn’t raining.

I closed my eyes again. Something hit the window.

I got up to check it out. Peering down to the street, I saw Tyreese standing there by himself. He spotted me and waved me down. I shook my head, but he wouldn’t leave. Finally, I opened the window.

“Come on; you gotta come!” he said, worried, maybe even scared.

“No, I’m staying,” I said as loud as I could without waking Mom. “You go.”

He shook his head, waved me down again. “Something’s gonna happen. You gotta come!”

He was talking too loud. “Hold on.” I pocketed my camera like always, heading downstairs. When I opened the door to the front of the building, Tyreese was standing there. He had the face of a kid whose teddy bear was just stolen.

“Look, I can’t go,” I told him. “I got a million things to do, and besides, they shouldn’t even be out playing, there are too many eyes—”

He took three steps and wrapped his arms around me. “You gotta come, Fish. K’s doin’ something that ain’t good.”

“What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“Maybe you can stop him before he gets in too much trouble.”

I felt his tears soaking my shirt. “Tyreese, what’s he gonna do?”

“He’s going after the bullhorn man. I think he’s gonna do something bad. Just come with me?”

Jesus. It’s like he wants to get caught. Either that or Kalvin thinks he’s invincible and he loves rubbing it in. “Is he at the library?”

He nodded. “Come on; he’ll listen to you.”

I doubted that. But somebody had to do something.