By Your Side(34)

“Saturday. So you better be there or my parents will think I lied.”

“Ugh.” I shoved his arm.

Avi laughed. “I have that emotion ten times a day in regard to Dallin.”

The bell rang. I scooped my lunch trash into my brown paper bag and headed for the trash can. “You’re dead to me,” I said to him as I went.

“You’re undead to me, baby.”

Lisa jumped up to join me and we headed toward Government together.

“Has he been to the hospital?” I asked.

“Dallin?”

“Yes.”

“I think so.”

“Is he in denial about Jeff or overly optimistic?”

“I think this is just the way he’s dealing with it.”

I stepped over a lunch tray that was left on the floor by the exit. “Yeah, probably.”

“But is there a reason you’re not optimistic about Jeff’s recovery?”

Because Mrs. Matson said he was in a medically induced coma. That meant the doctors were worried, didn’t it? But how would it help my friends to know that? “No. He’ll be fine. I just don’t feel like throwing a party right now.”

“We have to celebrate the little things, right?”

I smiled. “My return from the dead is now a little thing?”

She laughed. “So small. I mean, come on, you were only locked in the library.”

I smiled and hip-checked her. I could suck up my reservations and let my friends throw a party. Maybe it was just what they all needed. Some hope.

The laundry was stacked in piles on the coffee table when I came through the front door after school. I grabbed the two piles that were mine and headed for my room to drop them off.

“Autumn,” my dad said, cutting me off in the hall, holding another basket of laundry.

“Oh, hi. I wanted to ask if I could go to the hospital again today.”

“Weren’t you just there yesterday?”

“Yes, but . . .” I paused when I saw that he was holding Dax’s sweatshirt.

He must’ve seen my gaze because he said, “Is this yours?”

I went with the lie I’d already started on Lisa. “I found it in the lost and found at the library. It was cold in there. I’ll just take it.” I grabbed it from him but he didn’t relinquish it right away.

“Maybe we should return it.”

“I can do that,” I said, finally tugging it free. I draped it over my arm and continued walking with the two stacks I already had.

“I thought maybe it was that boy’s,” he said.

I came to an abrupt stop and turned around quickly, the sweatshirt slipping off my arm and falling in a heap at my feet. “What boy?”

“The one the doctor said was with you when the paramedics arrived.”

I was stunned silent.

“Maybe he heard the alarm too,” my dad said. “Was able to get into the library somehow to help you. I didn’t get all the details. But I think the police got his info.”

“Police?”

He chuckled a little. “You really were out of it, weren’t you?” He ran a hand along my cheek. “I’m glad you’re okay now. I’d like to thank that boy and get more details. Maybe I’ll call and find out how.”

Maybe I’d call and find out how too. Dax could avoid me at school, but he wouldn’t be able to avoid me if I showed up on his doorstep.

It had taken a couple of phone calls but I’d finally been able to talk a police officer into telling me the address Dax had given them. I now stood on the porch at his house wiping my palms, which were starting to sweat, on my jeans.

The door opened with a squeak, and a woman not much older than thirty answered. Her hair was multicolored and she wore an oversize T-shirt and jeans. “Can I help you?”

“Hi. Is Dax here?”

“Is he in some sort of trouble?”

“No, I just want to talk to him.”

Her eyes traveled the length of me. “He doesn’t live here anymore.”

My mouth opened, then shut again. “What? Where does he live?”

“Who are you?”

I shifted on my feet and put on a smile even though I didn’t have the best feelings for this woman. “A friend. I have some of his things.”

One thing really, his sweatshirt, and it was just a convenient excuse to see him.

“What things? They’re probably mine. He took a lot of my things.”

“They’re not yours. Do you have his address?” I was getting more irritated by the second.

“CPS didn’t tell me. I just know he was going to some group home.”

I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. So he had been sent to a group home over this. Over helping me. “I think you know where that home is, but maybe I should call CPS and let them know about the extra income you grow in your basement.” Did I just say that?

“Are you threatening me, girl?”

Fear snaked up my spine. I’d never done anything like this before, and I was sure it showed on my face, but I was getting desperate. “Yes.”

She mumbled something to herself and slammed the door in my face.

I let out a frustrated growl, then kicked her door. I just needed to walk away and forget about this. Dax got himself into this mess by deviating from the plan. He would be fine. He’d be eighteen soon, and then he could walk away from everyone like he’d always wanted.