Somebody Else's Sky (Something in the Way 2)

“She’s on my way home.” Val pulled my elbow. “Come on.”

“Are you sure?” Vickie asked. “I could always stay for dinner in case things get weird.”

“Weird?” Val stopped pulling. “Why? What’s for dinner?”

“Six-foot-five inches of delicious man meat,” Vickie said.

I looked over at her. “You’ve never even seen him.”

She shrugged. “I’ve heard rumors. Tiffany said he was that tall, at least, and that he looks like he should be riding a horse across a Tuscan landscape. Like an Italian model.”

“Wait, Tiffany’s boyfriend is coming over?” Val asked, bouncing on her toes.

I wrinkled my nose at Vickie, irritated. She was being rude and flippant about something that really mattered. Manning was so much more than a handsome face. “What Italian models do you even know?”

“Please let me come for dinner,” Val said.

“No,” I said. I hated them both in that moment for making light something I’d been agonizing over for more than a year. “It’s not that kind of dinner. It’s for family.”

“Yeah,” Val said and resumed pushing me toward her 1979 convertible Beetle. “Family only, so run along, Vickie.”

Vickie scowled, watching us go. “Fine. I have better things to do anyway.”

Val had a noisy car you could hear coming from down the block. My dad hated it, said it left grease stains on the street outside our house. By all reasoning, he should’ve hated her, too. Her skateboarding in our driveway, her revealing outfits, and her single, airhead mom who wore red lipstick to match her Mustang. He’d met Val a few times, though, and called her “a smart girl,” nothing more. That meant he liked her. He rarely volunteered much about any of my friends.

Val and I tumbled into the house. I threw my backpack onto the kitchen counter and opened the fridge.

“Lake?” Mom said from upstairs. “Is that you?”

“And me, Mrs. Kaplan,” Val called.

“Oh, hi, Val.” Mom came down with a mild grin, dressed in a gray skirt and blouse. “What are you girls up to?”

“When are you starting dinner?” I asked, handing Val a Yoo-hoo.

Mom checked her watched. “I have a house to show right now, and then I’ll be back. Probably around five. Tiffany wants to eat early because she thinks Manning will be exhausted. Do they not get to sleep much in prison? I would think so. What else do they do?”

Val looked at my mom blankly, and I imagined my expression was the same. It was weird to hear her say it so casually. In the library, I’d tried looking up information about prison. There were things to do like jobs and exercise and even TV, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think I understood anything about the experience.

“I’m going to go for a run,” I said. “Is there anything else I need to get for tonight? I can pick it up on my way home.”

Mom smiled and came over to fix my hair. “You’ve asked me that every day this week. We’re all set. Don’t be uncomfortable. I’m sure Manning is still the nice young man he was before all this. Try not to think of him as a criminal, but as a human being.”

Of course he wouldn’t be the same. I wasn’t, and I hadn’t been through a fraction of what he had.

“Enjoy your run. Don’t overdo it, okay?” On her way out of the kitchen, Mom patted Val’s shoulder. “Nice to see you, honey.”

Val and I went upstairs to my bedroom. At my dresser, I opened up the drawer with my running clothes.

“What’s she mean by overdo it?” Val asked.

“I don’t know.” I held up a pair of running shorts. “She’s been saying that a lot lately. She was all worried because I ran on Thanksgiving Day. And Christmas Eve. And Christmas. Like a holiday is an excuse not to exercise?”

“Well,” Val said in a tone that said, It kind of is.

I needed to run. It wasn’t really a choice at this point. When I missed a day, the pressure caught up with me. Test scores and college apps, USC and extracurriculars. Not just the pressure, but my mistakes, too. I began to think of things I shouldn’t, memories that’d gone from happy to sad, like talking to Manning on the bus to camp about his college classes and impending law enforcement career. Others haunted me—Manning being led away in handcuffs all because I’d gotten the wild idea he wanted one night alone with me. His orange jumpsuit. The judge ordering him away from us. The courtroom shrinking in the BMW’s side mirror. I pushed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets to expunge the images.

Look what you’ve done, Lake.

“Hey,” Val said. “What’s wrong?”

I turned to her. She was lying on my bed, Birdy under her bare armpit as she absentmindedly picked at the blue fur. “You’ll get deodorant on her,” I said, frowning.