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

It was the first time I could remember feeling like I had any real power over my situation. She’d asked if I was disappointed in her, and I wasn’t.

“Will you let Gary know I’m out of solitary?” I asked, getting up. “I gotta talk to him about something.”

Her eyebrows scrunched. “What?”

“Work.” It was partly true. If I didn’t have to worry about a place to live, it meant I could focus on the next most important thing—money. On my old crew, a few of the guys I’d worked with had had been ex-cons. Gary might know people in construction. But since I’d gone into isolation, some questions had grown bigger in my mind. How had I gotten here at all? Was there more to my arrest than bad timing? Had anyone else been involved? As the director at camp, Gary would know more than most.

“I already called him. He’s coming next week.” She cocked her head. “You’re not going to try and move in with him, are you?”

“I barely know him,” I said. Gary had been to see me several times, and I considered him a good friend, but that was easy to do when you didn’t have much else. I wasn’t about to ask him to go through all the shit that came with housing a criminal. “He didn’t offer anyway.”

“Oh. Good,” she said. “Because my place, it won’t be much, but I know we can make it our own. We can make it a home.”

Home. I hadn’t had a home since Maddy’d died. I didn’t even know the meaning of the word anymore.

But I still needed a place to live, and I could live with Tiffany for a while.

7

Lake, 1995

AP History had never been so tedious, and that was saying a lot. The secondhand on the clock above the door moved about as fast as Progress, the class pet everyone called a turtle but was actually a tortoise. Mr. Caws was so monotone, he could dull anything, even the ache in my heart some days. But not today. Today, my chest hurt implacably, unyieldingly . . . and for good reason.

Vickie leaned over to my desk and whispered, “Let’s go to Starbucks after school. I want to try that new Frappuccino thing.”

“I can’t.”

“Dairy Queen?”

“I asked you Monday if you could take me home today.” I fisted my pencil at both ends, fighting the urge to snap it. “You said you could.”

“Well, sure. I thought you meant hang out. I’m not, like, your chauffeur.”

“I know, but I really need to go straight home.”

She shifted her eyes to check the front of the classroom. Mr. Caws droned on with his back to us, so she continued, “How come?”

“We’re having a family dinner tonight.”

“So? You already do that weekly. Why is today important?”

Why was today important? She honestly had no clue about anything. I mean, I hadn’t actually mentioned today to her or anyone else for that matter. It felt too personal, too raw. Not something I could just bring up randomly in everyday conversation. Even the thought of it made my heart pound. I kept my eyes on the teacher. “We’re having company.”

Vickie gasped. “Is today—”

Mr. Caws stopped talking to look at us. “Girls,” he warned.

“Sorry, Mr. Caws,” we both replied.

He turned his back to write on the whiteboard.

“Tiffany’s boyfriend gets out of jail this week, right?” Vickie whispered.

Tick tock. Tick tock. I swear, time hadn’t progressed. The clock had to be broken.

By now, Tiffany would be on her way to pick up Manning. I wanted it to be me. I wished I wasn’t too afraid to cut school. I wished I had my license. I wished Tiffany hadn’t caught me getting into Manning’s truck and found both a reason to be suspicious and leverage over me. “He’s not her boyfriend,” I said.

“Sure seems like it the way she talks about him.”

“Well, he’s not. Tiffany’s delusional.” She exaggerated about everything. She only had him because he was trapped. I knew Manning wouldn’t forget me, even though he hadn’t bothered to write me back. The way he’d touched me—even just for a few seconds—I could feel it in his hands. He wanted me. He cherished me. That didn’t go away just because of some time apart.

If anything, that desire got stronger.

Tick tock. Tick tock. There were still five fucking minutes until school ended. Four hours until Manning would be at our doorstep. Dinner was Mom’s idea, one Dad had called “fucking dumb” right in front of me, which meant he’d been really angry. He’d eventually caved. Not to Tiffany but to Mom. In the time Manning had been away, Tiffany had managed to convince Mom he was innocent without revealing the truth about Manning and me. Dad didn’t buy it. Manning had walked into our home uninvited, why wouldn’t he walk into someone else’s? But Mom wouldn’t hear it. The man had been incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, and he had no family to come home to but us. He deserved a home-cooked meal.