Starlee's Turn (The Wayward Sons 2)

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Starlee. You made your feelings clear the other night and I think I made mine clear, too.”

I think back to her words before she walked off. Her final words. “I’m done.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted you to know I’m safe.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

There’s a lingering, uncomfortable pause, and I finally say, “I’m sure we’ll talk soon.”

“Goodbye, Starlee.”

“By—” she hangs up.

I place the phone on the cradle and look at Leelee. “That was unexpected.”

“She wasn’t upset?”

“Not exactly.” I’m not sure how to process the call. “I guess I’ll go get ready.”

“Me, too.”

I head down the hallway back to my room, feeling confused. After so many years of oppressive attention by my mother, I wasn’t prepared for the dull, uninterested tone on the other side. I’d felt for a while that my mother had tried her best to break me.

I wonder now if I’d done the same to her.

8

Charlie

Mr. Palmer, my first period English teacher, has a hard-on for poetry. Language arts isn’t my favorite class anyway, but poetry sucks, and the way Palmer waxes on about it is ridiculous. In dark ink at the top of my page, I scrawl, “Poetry Bites,” and fill it in with dark ink.

“Dude,” George mutters next to me. If Palmer sees it, I’ll end up in detention, which will only get me in more trouble.

“Truth hurts,” I mumble back but flip over my notebook. I’m being a bit of a dick, but the real truth is that I’m edgy as hell because Sierra took away my gaming computer last night because I forgot to take out the trash at the house and coffee shop, missing the truck, and that means we’ll have to take an extra trip to the dump. That extra trip is logistically hard because both George and Jake are in football right now, which means their jobs at the shop land on me and Dexter.

“It’s your fault, you know,” George says when Palmer turns his back. He’s well aware that my hatred for poetry is just a ruse for my real anger. “You never should have said that to Sierra.”

“I apologized.”

He shakes his head and copies down the sonnet Palmer is writing on the board. George is strangely a pretty good student—it’s just the rest of his life that gets in the way. His attitude with our dad, the tagging and art vandalizing. Sierra has really helped him get focused in a new direction and I know she’s trying with me, but she just doesn’t understand that playing video games isn’t just for fun. It’s my way to college and beyond.

George rolls his eyes. “You told her to hire someone else to do your chores. Then threw the garbage on the kitchen floor and stormed out. You owe her more than an apology. Dexter, too. He cleaned that shit up.”

“Mr. Evans and Mr. Evans, is there something you need to share with the class?” Palmer says dramatically, pausing at the front of the room.

“No, sir,” George says. I shake my head and focus on my blank paper.

I know my brother is right, my behavior was rude and out of line, but Sierra doesn’t get it. I have a tournament coming up with a scholarship attached. The more of these I play in, the more chance I can pay for school. I don’t have time for her punishment of taking the computer away.

Class finishes up and the bell rings. I feel George watching me as I shove my notebook in my backpack.

“What?” I ask.

“Stop being a dick about it and talk to Sierra. That’s the problem, Charlie, you act like a maniac and it’s why she thinks you’re an addict. Not that you aren’t, but you’re only confirming her suspicions.”

I tighten my jaw, not wanting to admit he’s right.

“For the record, you’ve been pretty intense since…well, you know.”