“HAVE YOU STARTED YOUR THEFT EDUCATION class yet?”
I pick a piece of onion off my pizza and meet my dad’s eyes across the living room. “Not yet.”
“Morgan.” He sighs and lowers the volume on the TV, which is showing the evening news. “The court gave you a deadline of August twelfth, remember? And it’s already the end of July.”
“It’s a four-hour online course, Dad. I think I can get it done in the next two weeks.”
“Well, don’t put it off too long,” he says, scooping up another slice from the open box on the coffee table. Sausage and mushroom from Nazario’s, as usual. “It’s part of your diversion requirement, and the court needs to see proof that you completed it.”
“I know.” I guess I have been putting off doing it, mostly because I assume the entire course will just be a four-hour lecture on how shoplifting is wrong and hurts society, which I already know. I’m not sure how watching videos and doing quizzes is supposed to deter me from stealing, but since the alternative is court and possible prosecution, theft education class it is.
Dad finishes his pizza and reaches for the remote. “Ready to watch?”
I swallow the food in my mouth and frown. “Sorry, but I have plans to hang out with Alyssa tonight.”
He frowns back at me for a moment, his finger poised on the remote, before breaking into a too-wide smile. “Oh. Well, that’s nice.”
I nod, trying to ignore a stab of guilt. My friends haven’t been around all week—Dawson and Alyssa had work, Sophie’s on vacation with her family, Zach’s been doing whatever it is he does when Sophie’s not around, and Eli left on Sunday for a spontaneous five-day camping trip with his father—so I’ve spent the past few nights marathoning Breaking Bad with Dad. Not that I mind spending time with him, but I’m excited about getting out tonight with my best friend, who I feel like I haven’t seen in weeks. Her mother’s been keeping her pretty busy at the store lately.
“Maybe tomorrow, okay?” I say without thinking. Tomorrow’s Friday, the day Eli comes back. Or so he said before he left. He hasn’t been able to text me all week, seeing as he’s out in the wilderness. I can’t imagine camping with my dad, unless it was in a well-equipped cabin with a Pizza Hut nearby.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Dad says, firing up Netflix. “There are plenty of other shows I’ve been meaning to binge-watch.”
I leave him to it and take the leftover pizza out to the kitchen. Fergus is sitting by his dish, staring into it like he’s trying to make Fancy Feast magically appear. I open a can for him before heading to hang out with Alyssa.
When I pick her up at Karalis Custom Jewelry, Alyssa collapses into the passenger seat and sighs wearily, like my father does after a bad day at work.
“My mother,” she says, eyes shut tight. “Is driving me. Crazy.”
I pat her shoulder and pull away from the curb, merging with the late-evening traffic.
“She got it into her head that she needs to advertise on social media.” She opens her eyes and leans over to turn up the stereo. Beyoncé almost drowns out her next words. “You know, to drum up business, which hasn’t been the greatest. But she barely knows how to do more than email, so guess who had to teach her how to make a business page on Facebook today? Yeah. Me. That was fun. By the time we got it set up, I felt like going to the bar next door and ordering a beer.”
“You don’t drink,” I remind her with a smile.
“Well, maybe I should start, because she also wants to ‘learn how to Twitter.’” She makes quotation marks around the words with her fingers. “That’s how she said it. So I have to give her a tutorial tomorrow. If I make it through that, I think I’ll definitely deserve one of those big slushy cocktails, at least.”
I laugh. “Hey, maybe I’ll join you. My dad’s been kind of clingy lately too. He was disappointed when I told him I couldn’t hang out with him again tonight.”
“Clingy? Your dad? But he’s usually so chill. I’m totally jealous of all the freedom he gives you and how much he trusts your judgment.”
My hands tighten on the wheel, and for a moment, I consider telling her everything. The shoplifting. Theft education class. How I ruined Dad’s trust in me so completely that I’m afraid I’ll never gain it back. But the words stay lodged in my throat. She’d never understand, and there’s no way she could keep it from the rest of our friends, even if I begged. Unlike me, she’s a horrible liar.
After driving around and singing along with the stereo for an hour, we stop off for some frozen yogurt. We get our usuals—chocolate topped with mini M&M’s and Nutella sauce for me, strawberry and vanilla topped with gummy worms for her—and sit at a table by the window.
“So,” she says, chopping the head off a gummy worm with the edge of her spoon, “Dawson asked me out the other day.”
I almost choke on an M&M. “What?”
“He asked me if I wanted to go to the Lighthouse on Friday night. Just the two of us.”
Wow. The Lighthouse is a very trendy, very pricey restaurant on the south end of town. None of us have ever been there, because none of us can afford it. Dawson can’t afford it, not on minimum-wage pay. He must’ve really wanted to impress her and make their potential first date extra special.
“And you said no,” I guess. I don’t even have to ask. Alyssa rarely changes her mind once it’s set. She’s the most stubborn person I know.
“Of course I said no. You know I don’t like him that way, and I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.” She bites her lip. “Do I give him the wrong idea? Oh, crap, do I flirt with him without realizing it?”
I shrug. She treats Dawson the same way she treats Sophie and me, with innocent, maternal-like affection. But to a guy who’s been in love with her for months, a simple smile or hug might carry a much different meaning. “I think you’re pretty clear about where you stand.”
“I try to be.” She sighs and takes a large bite of strawberry. “He probably hates me now. He hasn’t texted me since I turned him down.”
That explains his recent absence from the group chat we have going on Messenger, and why, when I drove him home from work yesterday, he talked about everything but Alyssa. I feel a twinge of sadness. Hopefully their friendship can survive this.
“He doesn’t hate you, Lyss.”
She ignores me and pushes away her fro-yo cup. “What is wrong with me? Am I defective? It seems like everyone wants to be in a relationship but me. It’s just . . . I have so much going on with my mother and the store and senior year coming up, dating is the last thing on my mind. And what’s the point of relationships at our age, anyway? They’re only going to end.”
I think of last Friday night, Eli and I stretched out on his living room couch, his warm hands on the back of my shorts, pressing me tight against him. There are definitely some benefits to dating.
“Oh God,” Alyssa says, snapping me back to the present. “You’re thinking about Eli, aren’t you? I can tell, because your freckles look like they’re all melding together. When are we going to meet him?”
“Soon.” My friends have been so busy lately, it’s hard to pin them all down at once. “He gets back from camping tomorrow. I’ll ask him. Maybe Saturday night?”
She nods and slides her yogurt cup back in front of her, then spoons a half-melted bite into her mouth. “Soph is back tomorrow too, and Zach is always free. Dawson might even put aside his hatred for me long enough to join us, if it means getting to know your new boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. Considering how much I’ve missed him this week, I guess the term fits.