~
“I’m sorry,” Gage says once we’re both sitting in the front seat again. “This was a bad idea. I’m just going to take you home, okay?” He glances warily at me from the corner of his eye. I guess the prospect of facing me is too horrible to contemplate.
“Whatever,” I tell him. I lost my cool there for a little but I’m not going to dissolve in front of his eyes. He doesn’t have to know how he’s rattled me.
“Sorry,” Gage repeats. I wish he’d quit apologizing every two seconds. It obviously doesn’t mean anything.
He called himself an idiot earlier, but I’m the real idiot, the grandmaster idiot. Thank God Genevieve and Nicole don’t have to know about this. No one at school does. It’ll be like tonight never happened.
Gage’s car is quieter than any library. I reach out and turn on his stereo. Considering what I did earlier, I’m not worried that touching his car stereo could qualify as overstepping boundaries. On the radio Natasha Bedingfield’s grooving about her “Pocketful of Sunshine.” Meanwhile my throat’s on fire. Inside I’m waging an epic battle to convince myself that I’m not really upset and that Gage is the one with the problem here, not me. Never mind that he seemed nice earlier, guys under thirty are a lost cause, just like Genevieve said.
I home in on the radio because it’s obvious that Gage and I don’t have anything left to say to each other. He hasn’t even bothered to explain himself beyond his minimalist sorry. I don’t have a “Pocketful of Sunshine” like Natasha does, but as I listen to the lyrics I find that they fit my situation after all. It’s one of those I’m gonna be all right no matter what anyone tries to do to me songs. Go, Natasha! Go, me! Goodbye, Gage.
But what did I do wrong?
Nothing, I remind myself. It’s not you, stupid. It’s him.
We veer into my driveway, a thumping hip hop tune replacing Natasha’s triumph. Gage turns the volume down and glances at me, his hand back on his neck, kneading away in full stress mode. “Thanks for coming out tonight,” he says. Maybe he’s in a band after all and expects me to applaud.
I nod silently. If I open my mouth he’ll know how upset I am within two seconds.
“I’m sorry, you know …” He drops his gaze for a second before pointing it back at me. “I should’ve taken you somewhere else.”
“Maybe,” I mumble, unbuckling my seat belt. I open the door, slip out, and slam it shut behind me without another word.
Gage stares out at me from the car. He rolls down the window and leans over the passenger seat. “Are you okay?” He sounds concerned, but I’m not going to poke my head into the window and explain what he should already know. He didn’t have to yell at me and practically shove me off him, making me feel like a leper.
“Fine.” I wave him away, forcing myself to deliver an almost casualsounding, “See you.”
I step away from his car, the thought that Devin would’ve written Gage off from the start jumping up and down inside my head, making it ache worse than my throat.
Devin’s not here but he’s still right. I am here and I’m dead wrong. Time to evolve into that new, improved version of myself Genevieve was talking about. I’m a little screwed up, I know, but I have no intention of being anybody’s cautionary tale.
***
I score fifteen out of fifteen on a science quiz the next day, which is funny because I feel unfocused and tired. Jon Wheatley bumps into me on the way out of class and catches a dazed expression on my face when he glances over to apologize. “Hey, your heart still pumping oxygen to your brain there, LeBlanc?” he asks as we head into the hallway. “You look like you’re about to go zombie.”
So maybe that’s what’s wrong with me: I’m about to go zombie. Who knew that people were so fuzzy-brained just before they turned? The state’s eerily similar to what it feels like to be shunned by the good-looking guy from the drugstore while your missing brother shambles along Queen Street, probably looking for drugs and/or the money to buy them.
“Check your pulse,” I tell Jon. “You’re the one who walked into me, Wheatley.” I smile like I’m just kidding, but by the time the lunch bell rings I’m heavy with a sadness that I can’t hide. I stride up to Nicole in the cafeteria and command her, “Walk with me.”
Nicole’s eyes darken.
“Walk with me,” I repeat, my face falling. “C’mon, Nic.” My voice cracks, and Nicole’s up in a shot, her shoulder pressed against mine as we stomp across the cafeteria together and into the hall.
“What happened?” she asks on the other side of the door. “Is it Jacob?”
I shake my head and rub my eyes, catching any tears before they can wet my skin.
“His turd friends?” she continues worriedly. “What? Tell me what’s going on, Serena.”
“Maybe nothing.” I squash another tear under my finger and begin to describe Tuesday’s crucial events. They’re not the only reason I feel like someone ran over me with a semi, but talking about seeing Devin is easier than confessing what happened last night.
Nicole and I hang out between the inner and outer doors to the north parking lot and she listens to me, curving a hand around my shoulder. “Do you think he saw you?” she asks when I pause. “Maybe that’s why he jumped on the streetcar.”
“I don’t think so. He never even looked in my direction. I had my eyes on him the entire time.”
“Like a private detective,” Nicole comments. “Maybe you should hire one. Have him tracked down.”
“That would cost a fortune. They’re something like forty bucks an hour.” I looked it up on the Internet when Devin walked off last June. Part of me was sick to death of all the drama and almost relieved that he’d written himself out of the family picture but there was still a huge chunk that needed to know I could find him if I had to — or at least that my parents could. I never asked them if they thought about hiring someone, though. I held the idea in reserve. A last chance.
The funny thing about the Devin drama is it didn’t end when he walked out; it just mutated into the way my parents and I live now, like we’re forever waiting. I’m not even sure whether it’s something good or something bad we’re waiting for. Both probably. Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Nicole nods thoughtfully. She folds her arms in front of her and leans against the wall.
“You can’t say anything,” I warn. “I told Morgan I wouldn’t let our parents find out.” Nicole’s head slants up, and I begin to explain our reasons for the secrecy, knowing that’s the question on her lips. I’ve never gone into any depth about Devin with her or Genevieve before. Unloading some of the details makes me feel at least two pounds lighter. “And maybe it wasn’t him anyway,” I add. “He could’ve lost more weight by now. I haven’t seen him in seven months. I might not even recognize him anymore.”
I know this is a logical thing to say, but in my heart I still believe there’s a good chance it was Devin I saw swallowed up by a Toronto streetcar. I wonder if that’s how Gage felt about seeing his father’s ghost. He admitted he could’ve imagined it but somehow I think he believes what his heart told him, just like I do. My lungs twinge at the thought.
“So …” Nicole says slowly. “Do you think maybe you can just think of it that way — decide for yourself that it wasn’t him and move on — or do you feel like you actually have to know?”
I freeze in place, my eyes dry. That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? “I don’t know.” My mascara has clumped. I stroke my sticky lashes. “I think maybe I should at least go back to Toronto, walk around. See.” I know that the odds I’ll find Devin waiting for a streetcar in exactly the same spot as last time are a thousand to one, but I can’t shake the feeling that I need to retrace his steps along Queen Street. If he passes by there a lot, someone might recognize him.
“We can comb the area,” Nicole suggests excitedly. “Bring a picture of him. Do you have one from before he left?”
I’m touched that she wants to help, and I realize I might have better luck if she, Genevieve, and maybe even Aya make finding Devin a group effort, but I don’t think I can do it that way. Even with what I’ve told her, Nicole doesn’t have any real idea of what it was like to live with Devin those last few months. Only my parents and maybe Morgan know what it was like to watch him be possessed before our eyes. Somehow involving anyone else would make the effort feel small, like a summer project to build a deck. I know Nicole has only the best intentions and I feel bad for not being able to work my way around the feeling that Devin is our problem — Morgan’s, my parents’, and mine — but I just can’t.
“I’m going now, Nicole,” I say. “I’m going to ditch my afternoon classes, and you have that presentation in English later.”
“We can go tomorrow,” she tells me. “It’s Saturday, we’ll have all day.”
“I can’t stop thinking about him.” I glance down at my shoes. “Being here feels like a waste of time. I’ll call you later, okay? Let you know if I find anything.”
Nicole frowns. “How’re you even going to get there?”
“I’ll take the bus.” There’s one at the Glenashton mall that hooks up with a commuter train travelling west to Toronto. My dad used to take it to work before he opened up his own audiologist practice in Glenashton. It’ll take me close to an hour and a half to make it to Queen Street, but it’s doable.
“You sure?” Nicole’s hair obscures one of her eyes as she tilts her head. “What if you need backup? What if he gets weird or …” She shrugs. “You sure?” she asks again.
I am. I let Nicole write a note excusing me from class for a dental appointment. “What’s your mom’s name?” she asks.
“Tessa. But she usually signs her name T. LeBlanc.”
Nicole signs my mother’s name as I described. It looks nothing like my mother’s real signature but at least Nicole will feel like she’s done something to help.
I hand in the note at the attendance office and then bus it over to the train station. In total my journey is a bus ride, one commuter train, and a subway ride long. An hour and forty-five minutes later I’m roaming along Queen Street, past clothing stores and coffee shops. It’s not as cold as it was on Tuesday but I can still see my breath in the air. Here and there, sitting outside convenience stores or in doorways that are the closest thing to warm you’ll find outside, homeless people sit begging. Some of them have signs explaining why they’ve fallen on hard times or what they’ll do with any money you hand over. I feel guilty strolling past them. Devin could be feeding himself this way, for all I know.
An old guy with a scraggly white beard and a spotted dog sitting next to him looks up at me as I approach. “Have any change for me, darlin’?” he asks. His cheeks are lined with broken blood vessels.
The dog looks up at me too. He has sadder eyes than the man.
“My best friend in this life,” the old guy tells me. “Everyone should have one.” I glance down at the tin can in front of the man and his dog on the sidewalk. I wonder how much money he’s gotten so far today. His cardboard sign doesn’t explain his life story; it simply reads: “Donation$ appreciated.” I notice his navy jacket is thick and has a good hood on it. I hope it keeps him warm.
“What’s his name?” I ask, pointing to the dog. “Or is it a her?”
“He’s a he.” The guy’s gloved hand lands affectionately on his spotted dog’s head. “Call him Bucky. Another old friend gave him to me. Got sick. Couldn’t take care of him no more.” I nod and listen to the man continue. “Not sure that I can do such a good job myself but at least we keep each other company.”
The beginnings of a sob are forming in my chest. I nod again to keep it trapped under my ribs. I don’t have much cash on me, and now that we’ve been having a conversation it feels like an insult to give the man money, but at the same time I know he could use it. I wriggle a five-dollar bill out of my pocket and press it into the man’s glove.
“You’re very kind,” he tells me, his lips jerking up. One of his bottom teeth is missing but he still has a nice smile.
I pull my cellphone out of my knapsack before I lose my nerve. “Do you think you could have a look at a photo for me and tell me if you’ve seen the person in it?” The man stares up at me, bewildered. I guess I don’t look much like a cop. “He’s my brother,” I explain. “He’s been missing since summer. I thought I saw him around here a couple of days ago.”
“Well, then.” He scrutinizes the image on my cell. It was taken about a week after Dad first brought Devin home from Queen’s University last March. He’d already lost about twenty-five pounds, and by the time he left in June at least another fifteen had vanished. Mom cooked up his favourite foods nearly every night (and even some mornings): steak smothered in mushrooms, chicken and ribs, fettuccine alfredo, fajitas, potato pancakes, deep dish peach pie.
I ballooned up worse than ever for a while, before the stress level surrounding Devin crushed my appetite. Sitting next to him at the table became the worst moments of each day, a test he almost always failed. He’d manage only a couple of bites before either making some lame excuse for why he didn’t have an appetite or just pushing the food restlessly around his plate until it got cold. Later he started getting angry with Mom, accusing her of wanting to keep him fat and saying things like, “The kind of things you’re putting in front of me, no one should be swallowing that garbage. What’re you trying to do — give me a heart attack before I’m thirty?”
“You’re wasting away, Devin,” Mom would lecture in a weepy voice. “Do you think we don’t know why you’re never hungry? You have to eat something. Your body can’t just run on …”
Mom couldn’t bring herself to use the word meth or even drugs.
“Here we go,” Devin would say, his mouth and eyes full of disdain. “Cry,” he instructed. “Cry. You never stop, do you? You can’t leave me alone for two seconds?” He’d push his chair away from the table and storm off, his food barely touched on the plate.
The Devin on my screen doesn’t look sick, but that’s a lie. He’s sitting in the kitchen in a khaki striped hoodie and smiling an overly bright smile, annoyed that I’m taking his picture. I didn’t think it’d be the last photo I ever took of him. I was just testing out my new phone at the time. Snapping everything in sight.
The old man in front of me is sitting on a flattened cardboard box. He takes his time staring at Devin’s image, like he really wants to be sure. Finally he looks up at me and hands back my phone. “Sorry, darlin’,” he says regretfully. “Can’t say the fella looks familiar to me. You say you saw him around here?”
Bucky’s glossy brown eyes are suddenly alert. The dog sniffs the air as an Asian woman strides by with a pizza box in her hands. I can smell the cheese and pepperoni too, and agree with Bucky that it’s unjustly tempting.
“I thought so,” I tell him. “But I’m not positive. It could’ve been someone with a resemblance.” I tuck my phone away again. “Thanks anyway.”
“Ask around.” The man stretches his arms out to indicate the scores of people passing. “Don’t take my word for it. Someone else might have seen him.”
I thank the man and continue slowly along Queen Street, searching out friendly faces, my hand clinging to my phone in my coat pocket, ready to pull it out. Some people don’t even wait for me to finish asking the question before shaking their heads at me and striding off. I give five dollars each to the two other homeless people I ask, feeling guilty for requiring something of them when they have so little. An Arab guy in a convenience store studies the picture on my cell before advising me that I shouldn’t approach people I don’t know because someone’s liable to steal it on me or worse.
“I’ll be careful,” I assure him.
Inside a coffee shop I question a cute barista guy with spiky blond hair and a barbell through his eyebrow. In Club Monaco two employees with sleek dark hair glare disapprovingly at my cell like it’s covered in Ebola germs. Restaurant hostesses, shoe store employees, and people behind deli counters, nobody has seen Devin.
I’m disappointed, but I don’t take it as proof one way or the other. I could come back down here a dozen times and never find a trace of him, even if he’s living around the corner.
Morgan wouldn’t be happy with my undercover work. I fully expect to run into my golden boy oldest brother at any moment. He lives just blocks away himself, and the MuchMusic studio is only about a hundred feet away from where I’m standing right now, my face getting prickly as the wind picks up. Above me, a mass of grey is gathering. Soon there’ll be snow. Do Bucky and his master have someplace to go when it snows heavy?
The cry I resisted earlier rumbles around in my lungs. I think of that morning in early June when Devin left us. He’d taken my mom’s car the night before. He wasn’t allowed to drive it anymore but that didn’t stop him. I had a geography exam at one o’clock and didn’t have to be up for hours but my parents’ frustrated voices woke me. Mom was due to leave for work and Dad was pacing the kitchen, his eyes bursting with tension. By then several of Mom’s crystal figurines had already gone missing, including one of her favourites, four lovebirds perched on a branch. Money slipped periodically out from my father’s wallet and mother’s purse. Morgan’s old flat screen TV, which he’d left on top of the walnut bureau in his former bedroom, disappeared into the night along with a ten-speed he’d stored in the garage.
“Nobody even cares about that old thing,” Devin said when Dad raised the subject of the disappearing TV. “It’d just been abandoned there. I didn’t think it mattered. If it’s so important I can see if I can get it back for him.”
But Devin didn’t return things. They slipped through his fingers never to be seen again. Like the night he knocked at my door at 1:47 a.m. and said a friend of his was in trouble and did I have any money he could borrow?
I stared warily at him in the dark. “Devin.”
My brother’s jaw tightened. He shoved both hands into his sweatshirt pocket. “Serena, you know I’m getting help. You know that. That’s what I’m doing back here. Mom and Dad, they don’t trust me anymore and, okay, I can see why. But I’m trying to change.” His running shoe tapped up and down on my floor, the motion silenced by my bedroom carpet. “This isn’t about any of that. I have a friend with a big problem and she needs my help. You know how hard it is for me to ask you this? I’m like …” He turned and faced the wall. “Jesus, Serena. You know I’d always help you.”
“Help me get high?” I asked in a low voice. Inside I felt sick, incredulous that I could speak to him that way.
A bitter chuckle dropped out of Devin’s mouth. “Right,” he said flatly. “Because that’s all I do and all I am. Nothing’s ever about anything else and anyone I’d know isn’t worth helping anyway.” He pulled his hands out of his pocket and crossed them against his stomach. “Thanks, Serena. I don’t have to guess where I stand with you.”
“How can I give you money when I don’t know what you’ll do with it?” I said pleadingly.
He shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “I’m in treatment now, Serena.” Day treatment, but my parents and his counsellor didn’t believe it was enough so he was on a waiting list for an in-patient facility in Quebec — a place where they keep you for months. “The way you’re all acting, it’s like no one will ever trust me again anyway, so what’s the point in staying clean?”
I wanted so much to believe him, to see him as the person he used to be. If he’d shouted at me the way he yelled at Mom it would’ve been easy to turn him down.
The money I gave him didn’t make its way back to me, just like Morgan’s old TV didn’t make it back to his room. My mom’s car, on the other hand, arrived back in our driveway at just after nine in the morning. Honestly, I was starting to wonder if we’d ever see it again, but when Devin strolled into the kitchen he acted like it was no big thing.
“Your mother’s late for work!” my father yelled, blood rushing to his face. “I’m late for work! You know you’re not supposed to take the car. I’ve reached my limit, Devin.” Dad’s head bobbed aggressively on his shoulders. “This is it. One more incident and I’m locking you out, understand?”
Devin shut his eyes tight and exhaled noisily. “You have the car back,” he said, eyelids flying open again. “How is that even an incident?” He motioned with outstretched palms. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. When Morgan had the car back late he’d get a slap on the wrist. When I do it it’s the end of the world.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Do you have any idea how crazy you sound? You’re all so pathologically paranoid — it’s like living inside a loony bin.”
Mom’s hands twitched. She opened and closed her mouth, no sound escaping.
I was standing against the counter, about to load my breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. Devin’s dilated pupils homed in on me. “What are you looking at?” he asked me. “Why don’t you just go on and open the cupboard there and stuff your face with some cookies — that’s what you’re good at.”
My cheeks twitched like Mom’s hands. I turned my head, my whole face stinging.
“Where are they?” Dad said, barrelling towards him. “Where are the drugs, Devin?” He reached around Devin’s back and grabbed at his jean pockets.
“Get your hands off me!” Devin shouted, pushing him backwards.
Dad stumbled backwards towards me, his gaze never leaving my brother. “You put them up here now.” Dad’s hand thumped the counter behind him. “I won’t have any more drugs in my house and I won’t have you taking things that don’t belong to you. This is the end of the line, Devin. Everyone here wants you to get the help you need, but none of us can do a thing for you if you don’t help yourself.”
Devin’s laugh sounded like a coiled sneer collapsing in on itself. “It’s that easy, is it?” He cocked his head and dragged his top teeth across his bottom lip, smiling crookedly. “I just have to want it.”
“We know it’s not easy,” Mom murmured, her eyes darting between Devin and my father. “We can’t keep going on like this if you don’t try.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Mom,” Devin said snidely. “You seem to try enough for all of us.”
Dad took three heavy steps back towards Devin and stood in front of him as if to block his way. “Empty your pockets, son,” my father instructed. “Then you can go up to your room.”
“This is bullshit,” Devin snapped, jostling by him.
Dad’s arm flew out and gripped Devin’s shoulder. They pushed back and forth against each other, knocking the nearest chair to the ground. Mom jumped. I scuttled towards the stove, as far away from them as I could get. Then Devin drew his right arm back, his fingers forming a fist. He swung at my father’s jawline and sent him reeling. Dad collapsed onto the upended chair, one of its legs breaking off under his weight.
Mom rushed to Dad’s side, kneeling beside him while Devin watched. “He wouldn’t let go of me,” Devin said flatly. “You both saw. He should’ve let go.”
I stared at my brother with my mouth gaping and my face still in flames.
“Fuck this,” Devin said to himself, both hands scratching through his hair. He turned and lurched out of the kitchen, back the way he’d come. The front door slammed as Mom and I crowded around Dad and the broken chair.
I’m numb when I think of that morning now. For a long time the image of Dad on the tile floor beside the remains of a wooden chair shocked me. It’s weird how something can shock you time and time again, even though it’s already happened. I couldn’t believe that Devin would talk to me like a dumb fat girl either. Nobody cares what you think, his spiteful tone said. No one will ever really like you. We’d been imperfect together for all of my life. I didn’t fully realize the togetherness was over with until that moment. It was almost as much of a shock as Dad broken on the ground.
Why am I even looking for Devin?, I ask myself again. Why do I care? I shuffle along the street and into Second Cup, where I sit over a steaming hot chocolate, fighting back angry tears.
That’s what you’re good at.
Jacob told me I was good at other things, but apparently Gage Cochrane doesn’t agree, and I can see with absolute clarity how the tangled mess of my former blubber, personal insecurities, and stupid need for some kind of male approval have shaped me into a person I don’t want to be.
My coat’s behind me, draped on the chair, and I wrestle my cell out of my pocket, determined to right one of my own wrongs.
“Hello?” Gage says into my ear.
“It’s Serena,” I say in a steely voice. “Would you mind telling me what I did last night that was so horrible that we had to evacuate the area?”
At first there’s no answer; I’ve stunned him silent. “I’m at work,” he tells me after a long pause. “I can’t talk right now. Can I call you back later?”
If he ever planned to get in touch with me again, my call will have changed Gage’s mind in a hurry. “Right, like that’ll happen,” I mutter bitterly. I hang up on him and drop my cell down next to my hot chocolate. Thank God I didn’t wear my magic dress to dinner last night. It would’ve been wasted on him.
And we gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn. Ellie Goulding’s voice has such ache and strength that every time my cell rings I forget everything else for a millisecond. Inhaling the sweet smell of my hot chocolate, I pause before sweeping up my ringing phone.
“You don’t know me well enough to hang up on me,” Gage says, annoyed. “What makes you think I even need to explain?”
I rub my temples with my other hand, frustration whipping through my veins. “You jumped out of the car, sped back to my place, and barely said a word. Is that the way you normally act on a date?”
“I can’t talk now,” Gage repeats in a barbed tone. “But if you rewind the whole night and play it back in your head maybe you’ll be able to figure out what went wrong for yourself.” The annoyance he heaps on that last sentence makes me want to empty my hot chocolate onto someone’s head.
“I think I actually figured it out just now,” I snap. I’m about to tell him that he’s a first-rate asshole when a woman in tall brown boots and a red coat bends to address me. I’ve had a couple of training shifts at Total’s makeup counter and I’m pretty sure the whiff of perfume I catch is by Stella McCartney.
“Is that seat taken?” the woman whispers, motioning to the empty chair across from me.
“You can have it,” I assure her, not bothering to cover the phone. She thanks me and drags the chair towards a friend at a nearby table.
“If I thought you were the kind of person who’d freak out like this over nothing I wouldn’t have asked you out in the first place,” Gage tells me.
I thought I wanted to argue with him, but as I sit in Second Cup watching wispy bits of white dance in the wind outside I suddenly feel drained and empty. This hasn’t been a good day, and fighting with some random guy I barely know over the phone won’t make me feel any better.
“Serena?” Gage prompts.
“What?”
“I gotta go.”
“I know. You said that before. So go.” My voice cracks on the word go. It’s not even him or what we’re talking about in particular. Everything has just backed up on me. It’s probably a good thing I haven’t been able to find Devin. If he said something cruel to me, like that day in June, I would either dissolve into tears or scream at him until both our ears bled.
“Listen.” Gage’s anger has eased up, making it obvious he heard my voice break. “If you still want me to call later … Sorry I got so —”
He’s doing that thing where he can’t stop apologizing again, but I don’t want to listen. “Look, I’m having a really shitty day here,” I say, talking over him, “so whatever you …”
Behind me somebody hiccups out a laugh. I noticed a guy with a laptop and a latte sitting at one of the tables behind me when I first grabbed my seat. Whatever he’s looking at must be hilarious because now he’s laughing so hard that it’s a wonder there’s enough oxygen getting to his brain. Someone will probably have to call an ambulance for him any second now.
“Where are you?” Gage asks, so I guess he can hear hyena guy too.
I sneak a look behind me. The guy’s bent over in his chair, his shoulders shaking. I wish he’d shut up already. His manic laugh, the smiling homeless guy on the street with his dog, Bucky, and me, out on the pavement looking for someone who doesn’t exist anymore — it’s all exhausting and wrong.
“Toronto,” I mumble, my voice still unsteady. “I was looking for someone, but it hasn’t worked out.”
“I really have to go,” Gage says. “But if you …” He doesn’t sound sure of his words. “Do you … have a ride home?”
Together, last night and my follow-up phone call have warped whatever potential Gage and I had before. I don’t know that I want to sit in his car knowing that he just feels sorry for me, the girl who never seems to have a ride.
“I’m off in thirty minutes,” he continues. “If you don’t have another way home I can come get you.”
“Why would you want to do that?” I ask, and then I’m crying.