I shrugged. “I’d dodge.”
“You’re impossible.” Libby grudgingly put the money away, produced a muffin tin out of nowhere, and fixed me with a look. “You will accept this muffin to make it up to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I went to take it from her outstretched hand, but then I looked past her to the counter and realized she’d baked more than muffins. There were also cupcakes. I felt my stomach plummet. “Oh no, Lib.”
“It’s not what you think,” Libby promised. She was an apology cupcake baker. A guilty cupcake baker. A please-don’t-be-mad-at-me cupcake baker.
“Not what I think?” I repeated softly. “So he’s not moving back in?”
“It’s going to be different this time,” Libby promised. “And the cupcakes are chocolate!”
My favorite.
“It’s never going to be different,” I said, but if I’d been capable of making her believe that, she’d have believed it already.
Right on cue, Libby’s on-again, off-again boyfriend—who had a fondness for punching walls and extolling his own virtues for not punching Libby—strolled in. He snagged a cupcake off the counter and let his gaze rake over me. “Hey, jailbait.”
“Drake,” Libby said.
“I’m kidding.” Drake smiled. “You know I’m kidding, Libby-mine. You and your sister just need to learn how to take a joke.”
One minute in, and he was already making us the problem. “This is not healthy,” I told Libby. He hadn’t wanted her to take me in—and he’d never stopped punishing her for it.
“This is not your apartment,” Drake shot back.
“Avery’s my sister,” Libby insisted.
“Half sister,” Drake corrected, and then he smiled again. “Joking.”
He wasn’t, but he also wasn’t wrong. Libby and I shared an absent father, but had different moms. We’d only seen each other once or twice a year growing up. No one had expected her to take custody of me two years earlier. She was young. She was barely scraping by. But she was Libby. Loving people was what she did.
“If Drake’s staying here,” I told her quietly, “then I’m not.”
Libby picked up a cupcake and cradled it in her hands. “I’m doing the best I can, Avery.”
She was a people pleaser. Drake liked putting her in the middle. He used me to hurt her.
I couldn’t just wait around for the day he stopped punching walls.
“If you need me,” I told Libby, “I’ll be living in my car.”
CHAPTER 3
My ancient Pontiac was a piece of junk, but at least the heater worked. Mostly. I parked at the diner, around the back, where no one would see me. Libby texted, but I couldn’t bring myself to text back, so I ended up just staring at my phone instead. The screen was cracked. My data plan was practically nonexistent, so I couldn’t go online, but I did have unlimited texts.
Besides Libby, there was exactly one person in my life worth texting. I kept my message to Max short and sweet: You-know-who is back.
There was no immediate response. Max’s parents were big on “phone-free” time and confiscated hers frequently. They were also infamous for intermittently monitoring her messages, which was why I hadn’t named Drake and wouldn’t type a word about where I was spending the night. Neither the Liu family nor my social worker needed to know that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.
Setting my phone down, I glanced at my backpack in the passenger seat, but decided that the rest of my homework could wait for morning. I laid my seat back and closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep, so I reached into the glove box and retrieved the only thing of value that my mother had left me: a stack of postcards. Dozens of them. Dozens of places we’d planned to go together.
Hawaii. New Zealand. Machu Picchu. Staring at each of the pictures in turn, I imagined myself anywhere but here. Tokyo. Bali. Greece. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been lost in thought when my phone beeped. I picked it up and was greeted by Max’s response to my message about Drake.
That mother-faxer. And then, a moment later: Are you okay?
Max had moved away the summer after eighth grade. Most of our communication was written, and she refused to write curse words, lest her parents see them.
So she got creative.
I’m fine, I wrote back, and that was all the impetus she needed to unleash her righteous fury on my behalf.
THAT FAXING CHIPHEAD CAN GO STRAIGHT TO ELF AND EAT A BAG OF DUCKS!!!
A second later, my phone rang. “Are you really okay?” Max asked when I answered.
I looked back down at the postcards in my lap, and the muscles in my throat tightened. I would make it through high school. I’d apply for every scholarship I qualified for. I’d get a marketable degree that allowed me to work remotely and paid me well.
I’d travel the world.
I let out a long, jagged breath, and then answered Max’s question. “You know me, Maxine. I always land on my feet.”
CHAPTER 4
The next day, I paid a price for sleeping in my car. My whole body ached, and I had to shower after gym, because paper towels in the bathroom at the diner could only go so far. I didn’t have time to dry my hair, so I arrived at my next class sopping wet. It wasn’t my best look, but I’d gone to school with the same kids my whole life. I was wallpaper.
No one was looking.
“Romeo and Juliet is littered with proverbs—small, pithy bits of wisdom that make a statement about the way the world and human nature work.” My English teacher was young and earnest, and I deeply suspected she’d had too much coffee. “Let’s take a step back from Shakespeare. Who can give me an example of an everyday proverb?”
Beggars can’t be choosers, I thought, my head pounding and water droplets dripping down my back. Necessity is the mother of invention. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
The door to the classroom opened. An office aide waited for the teacher to look at her, then announced loudly enough for the whole class to hear, “Avery Grambs is wanted in the office.”
I took that to mean that someone had graded my test.
I knew better than to expect an apology, but I also wasn’t expecting Mr. Altman to meet me at his secretary’s desk, beaming like he’d just had a visit from the Pope. “Avery!”
An alarm went off in the back of my head, because no one was ever that glad to see me.
“Right this way.” He opened the door to his office, and I caught sight of a familiar neon-blue ponytail inside.
“Libby?” I said. She was wearing skull-print scrubs and no makeup, both of which suggested she’d come straight from work. In the middle of a shift. Orderlies at assisted living facilities couldn’t just walk out in the middle of shifts.
Not unless something was wrong.
“Is Dad…” I couldn’t make myself finish the question.
“Your father is fine.” The voice that issued that statement didn’t belong to Libby or Principal Altman. My head whipped up, and I looked past my sister. The chair behind the principal’s desk was occupied—by a guy not much older than me. What is going on here?