“Tater tots,” I say, pushing my tray away. “It goes cold tater tots, Liam.”
“Yum,” he says, snatching two off the plate. “I don’t mind them cold.”
“Cold like an ice queen?” I ask.
Liam looks up from the tray.
“Brody is an ass. And I told him exactly that after class yesterday.”
“Yeah, he is.” I pull out my newspaper binder and flip through it.
“Seriously, and I’ve never laughed at the stupid ice queen thing.” I stop flipping and look up, trying to figure out how serious he is right now.
“Hey there, remember me?” Sofia asks, waving a hand in front of my face. “What happened?”
“Brody Thompson was being a jerk in lit class,” Liam says.
“Oh, well. That’s hardly news to anyone.” Sofia rolls her eyes.
“Thank you for saying something to Brody.” I don’t speak up in class much, and I haven’t spoken to Brody since I turned him down, so it was really nice to have support yesterday.
“No problem,” he says. “So . . . wanna go out with me sometime?”
Sofia chokes a little on her chocolate milk.
“Um, sorry, but no thank you.”
“Wow,” Liam says. “You aren’t even gonna think about it.”
Just for a moment, I imagine bringing Liam to my house. A wave of nausea hits me.
“I don’t see the point of dating right now.”
“Wait, you don’t date at all?”
“I have to focus on getting into college.”
As Liam and I talk, I try to ignore the wild gestures that Sofia is making across the table. Thank God Liam is doing this thing where he focuses only on me. Forget the charm, or how damn funny he is, or those kind eyes. It’s his attentiveness that I find nice. So different. He’s really looking at me and listening to what I say.
That’s what makes me want to say yes.
“There’s no chance you aren’t getting into college, Leighton. Don’t you have, like, perfect grades? You’re super smart.”
The blunt compliment surprises me.
“It could be fun,” Liam adds.
I fiddle with the bracelet on my arm—a leather cuff bracelet with my initials on it. Campbell and Juniper each have one, too. Our grandpa made them for us just before we lost him, a few years ago. It reminds me of him, and my sisters.
But then my thoughts inevitably shift to our house, and I turn my happy little heart back into stone.
“I don’t have time for fun. I have homework to do.” That’s true, at least. Senior year, advanced placement classes, college applications, newspaper. How can anyone have a social life when we have six hours of homework every night?
“You can just tell me I’m not your type,” Liam says. “I can take it.”
“You aren’t my type, Liam,” I say.
Liam blinks a few times, then lets out a long, low whistle. His perfectly pursed lips almost make me take back my rejection.
“Wow. That, uh, that cut me deep, Barnes. Cut me real deep.” He sighs and leans forward, resting his forehead on his hands on the lunch table.
“Liam?” I ask, and nod at Sofia, who reaches over to shake him a bit. Sofia can’t stop giggling, and it’s taking everything I’ve got to not cave in and laugh, too. Liam sits up again, stone-faced and refusing to break his character of heartbroken teen. I give him my best I’m-not-falling-for-your-games look.
“Gotta respect your decision. Might take me years to get over this moment, though, Barnes. Decades. I will pine. I won’t go full Romeo, but I’m thinking the word catatonic might apply here,” Liam says as he slides out of the booth.
“You are ridiculous,” I say, but my reproach is weak coming through the gigantic smile on my face.
“All right,” Sofia says. “Now please go away so we can talk about you and I can convince this amazing, stupid girl to go out with you.”
“There’s hope?” Liam says. “I’ll take it. See ya in English class, Barnes.”
He grabs one last cold tater tot, tossing it in the air and catching it in his mouth as he walks away.
“The way he calls you by your last name makes me feel like I’m intruding on something . . . intimate.”
“Ew, Sofia. Don’t say intimate.”
“Whatever. It’s true. Do you hear the way he says your name? He likes you, Leighton.”
Dammit.
Every interaction with him is so fun. And light. I feel happier talking to him at our lockers than in any other part of my day. And in a parallel universe, I would recognize this for what it is: I have a colossal crush on Liam. Maybe in that universe we could date. But in this one, no such luck. I have a countdown. A deadline. Less than a year to get things fixed at home so that Campbell and Juniper are safe. Or I can’t go.
The last thing in the world I need is to set myself up for one more heartbreak. Because in my living room there is a framed photo of Auburn High’s Homecoming King and Queen from nineteen years ago, and it’s a constant reminder of what ever after really looks like. Maybe classic lit had it right all along, and the romances just haven’t gotten to the real end of the story yet.
If you wait long enough, all hearts get broken.
Chapter Ten
THE CROWS DON’T STOP COMING. I feel their shining eyes watching us wherever we go. And every day, the eyes multiply by two and two and two, until the twos form thousands. They perch on fences. They cling to trees. They watch from rain gutters and church steeples and broken weather vanes spinning on barns. The rusted roosters turn not with the wind, but with the inconsistent, shifting weight of feathers.
One afternoon they arrive like a black cloud over Auburn, thousands at once.
I hear the complaints whispered everywhere I go—in the grocery store line, and by the secretaries in the school office. A mess. A nuisance. Why don’t they leave? And maybe it’s because we already had Joe, the strangeness of the bird a constant presence in our lives, but I find that I like the birds. I like their noise and their watchful eyes. I like the way they pay attention to the people of Auburn.
The first time I noticed Joe was two years ago this autumn; I remember because we’d just buried Grandpa, and even though our view hadn’t changed, everything felt different. We used to stay with my grandparents all the time. Their old farmhouse was our second home, our safe retreat from my father’s anger. It always worked in a cycle—the rage, the apologies, a few weeks or sometimes just days of peace, and then the buildup would begin again. And Mom was usually good at reading those signs, and casually suggesting we go stay with her parents for a night or two. But occasionally even she missed the signs, and we wouldn’t know the storm was coming until it was on top of us and Mom was ushering us out to her car and bundling us into car seats and showing up at my grandparents’ house in the dark of the night. Sometimes we would arrive crying and still scared, but most of my memories of our huddled walk into their home are marked by silence. A quiet understanding among the adults, and a familiar acceptance for us girls. Besides, by the time we got there, we were feeling safe.
But then two years ago a heart attack wrecked that carefully orchestrated balance. Grandpa was gone, and Nana slipped fast. Without Grandpa there filling in the gaps, we realized that Nana wasn’t doing very well on her own. So their house was sold to pay for an apartment in assisted living. I begged Mom to leave him then. To move us in with Nana, so we could take care of her.