By Your Side(23)

“Does it really? I’m not sure if this one is very good.”

He had barely given it a glance. “All your pictures are awesome. Now come with me.” He pulled me up by the arm and led me away.

“I need to save my work.”

“Someone will save it for you. You need to take me to the teachers’ lounge and buy me a soda.”

“We’re not allowed in the teachers’ lounge.”

He stopped in front of the door leading there. “I’m not allowed in the teachers’ lounge. But you can go anywhere you want, it seems. Teachers like you. With you by my side, I could do anything.”

“I’m not going into the teachers’ lounge.”

He laughed and then knocked. I gasped, my heart racing.

The vice principal opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“Autumn wants a soda,” he said.

“No, I . . .” I started through my tight throat.

“Hold on a second.” She shut the door and I shot Jeff a look.

“Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

“Don’t worry. No trouble here.”

He had been right. She came back a minute later holding a Coke. When she shut the door again I laughed.

“See, teachers love you.”

“Oh please. You wrote the book on how to charm teachers. Obviously.”

He smiled.

My socked foot slipped on a stair, jolting me out of my memory and nearly sending me falling. I caught hold of the rail, preventing that fate. My stomach let out a large growl and I wondered if physical activity was going to make me warmer but hungrier. I headed to the kitchen and decided the mystery dish needed to be warmed up and attempted. The only thing I’d had that day was half of a protein bar, and that was hours ago.

The microwave took me a while to decipher. I overcooked it a bit, hoping that would kill any bacteria that might’ve been living in the old food. I tried not to think about that as I forked a small bite into my mouth. It tasted like pasta with marinara sauce and it was very good. I wasn’t sure if that was because I hadn’t eaten anything real in a while or if it actually was good, but I took a few more bites anyway.

I ate exactly half and took the rest down to Dax.

“You braved the unknown?” he asked, accepting the dish and looking in the bowl like he wasn’t sure he was willing to do the same. He sniffed at it.

“Yes. It’s good. Eat it.”

The food and the exercise had done the trick for me, and my chin had finally stopped shivering. Dax put his book to the side and took a small bite.

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

“Pasta? Very overdone pasta.”

“It tasted good to me. Probably because I’m hungry.”

He took another bite, then held out the bowl. “You can have the rest. I don’t like it.”

“Really? You’re a food critic now?”

“Yes. And that’s disgusting.”

I grabbed the pasta and it wasn’t until I ate two big bites that it occurred to me what he’d just done. Did he just pretend not to like it so I could eat it? Because this wasn’t gross at all. I wasn’t sure one way or the other. It didn’t seem like something he’d do, but then again, he was different than I’d originally thought.

“Have you ever been to that Italian place on Center Street? Gloria’s or something?” I asked.

“No.”

“Because you don’t like Italian food?”

“It’s not my favorite.”

Huh. Maybe he really didn’t like it. I finished off the rest and put the empty dish down. “You should work on your history project while you’re here. We finished ours on Friday.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” I could tell that was the last thing he was going to do. I wondered how his grades in school were. He missed so much I couldn’t imagine him doing very well.

“I can help you if you want.”

“Sure. You get started. I’ll join you in a couple hours.”

I kicked his foot with a smile. “Funny.”

I walked over to the pile of books I had thrown the first night. Some were open facedown, their pages bent. I picked them up one by one, smoothing out the pages and stacking them neatly. Then I walked them over to a cart at the end of an aisle. There were several books already on the cart, waiting to be put away. Books with titles like: Ten Steps to Rehabilitation, Habits of an Addict, Brain Chemistry and Addiction. They weren’t necessarily Dax’s books—they could’ve been anyone’s, but Dax had been here Friday too, obviously, waiting for the library to close. Was this the research he was doing instead of Mr. Garcia’s project?

He doesn’t want your pity, I reminded myself.

“I’m getting ready for bed,” I told him, then turned around and headed for the bathroom, where he’d started leaving all the toiletries he’d brought. I took my time getting ready and then tucked myself into his sleeping bag.





CHAPTER 15


I awoke to a sound I couldn’t quite place at first. A clicking of sorts. It took me several disorienting minutes to realize it was Dax, twenty feet away from me, shivering in his sleep. Had he been holding back his shivering when he was awake for my sake? I tried to ignore it, knowing he wouldn’t want me to do anything, but I felt guilty. I had the very thing he had brought to keep himself warm. I climbed out of the sleeping bag, unzipped it and crawled over to him, dragging it behind me.