With a bag in each hand, I paused for a moment outside the van, staring at
her. “Well, it was a helluva night,” I said finally.
“Come here,” she said, and I took a step forward. She hugged me, and the
bags
made it hard to hug her back, but if I dropped them I might wake someone.
I could feel her on her tiptoes and then her mouth was right up against my ear
and she said, very clearly, “I. Will. Miss. Hanging. Out. With. You.”
“You don’t have to,” I answered aloud. I tried to hide my disappointment. “If
you don’t like them anymore,” I said, “just hang out with me. My friends are
actually, like, nice.”
Her lips were so close to me that I could feel her smile. “I’m afraid it’s not
possible,” she whispered. She let go then, but kept looking at me,
taking step
after step backward. She raised her eyebrows finally, and smiled, and I believed
the smile. I watched her climb up a tree and then lift herself onto the roof outside
of her second-floor bedroom window. She jimmied her window open and
crawled inside.
I walked through my unlocked front door, tiptoed
through the kitchen to my
bedroom, peeled off my jeans, threw them into a corner of the closet back near
the window screen, downloaded the picture of Jase, and got into bed, my mind
booming with the things I would say to her at school.