Every Other Weekend(111)

I tried to move when I heard Dad and Shelly’s footsteps cross the room, I swear I tried, but Jolene and I were wrapped together and there was a blanket twisted around both our legs. She moved one way and I went the other and I ended up half on top of her when the door opened.





   Jolene

Adam’s dad didn’t drag him off my bed and out of the room. No, it was much worse than that. He stood there silently watching as Adam climbed off me.

I’d only glimpsed Adam’s dad’s face when the door opened, and his expression was one of desperation and fear. I immediately thought of Greg, and whether it had been a minute or ten since Adam’s dad discovered he wasn’t in his bed, I knew for a man who had already lost one son, it had been an eternity.

It was almost comical how his features shifted. There was that one bright burst of relief when he’d had to catch his weight on the doorframe, but it had been followed so quickly by cold, hard disappointment that laughter was the furthest thing from my mind.

Adam tried to explain that it wasn’t what it looked like while he was climbing off me.

Yeah, that went over well. His dad didn’t say a word.

Shelly, for once in her life, was speechless, too.

Adam shot me a glance before leaving. He was smart enough not to say anything to me. His dad was clearly beyond words at that point, otherwise I’d have tried to say something myself.

When they left, I told Shelly the truth.

“I don’t care if you believe me or not. Nothing happened. He came over last night and we fell asleep watching a movie.”

“I believe you,” she said. “You’re stupid and he’s going to get in a lot of trouble because of it, but I believe you.”

My shoulders sagged. She was right. I didn’t want to think about that, so I deflected. “Think my dad’ll be that mad?”

Shelly hesitated. “I should probably tell him.”

I stared at her as I scooted off the bed. “That was a rhetorical question, Shelly. We both know he doesn’t care.”

“He does.” She took a hesitant step into my room. “He should. I’ve been talking to him about being more involved, and he’s going to try, Jolene. He’s just so busy.”

That was such a load, and we both knew it. “Do you know how many days it’s been since I’ve seen him? Actually seen him, beyond the rare glimpse in the morning on his way out the door?”

Shelly lowered her gaze and plucked the exact number from my mind. “One hundred and ninety-four.”

I gaped at her. Nobody knew that but me. Dad might, I supposed, but something told me he was “too busy” to count. I hadn’t even told Adam. But Shelly knew, which meant she’d been keeping track, and I couldn’t for the life of me fathom why.

“Why do you know that?” I moved toward her.

She caught her hands up in front of her, wringing them. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I thought—”

“What? You thought what?”

“Can we stop?” she asked. “Can we stop being enemies? I never wanted that.”

“You just wanted a married man and you used me to get him. So no,” I said, reaching for my doorknob and forcing my eyes to remain bone-dry when hers flooded. “We don’t stop. How could you think for a single moment that I could possibly stop?”

I shut the door in her face and after looking around the empty room where minutes before Adam had been holding me, I opened the door to my balcony and let the bracing wind lash at me until my cheeks felt numb. And then I forced that feeling to spread to the rest of me.



* * *



Shelly left shortly after that. I didn’t know or care where. Adam’s dad had been yelling at him earlier, but they must have migrated to the other bedroom, because it’d been a while since I’d heard anything. I paced my room and chewed my nails till they bled. He’d find some way to let me know what happened, wouldn’t he? Once he calmed down and let Adam explain, his dad wouldn’t keep us apart forever, right? I tried to reason with myself but it didn’t help.

The thing that finally drove me from my room was another fist pounding on the front door.

I honestly hoped it was Adam’s dad. I was ready to tell him everything if it meant I could still see Adam.

But it wasn’t.

Jeremy craned his neck to peer past me into my apartment. “Is Shelly home?”

I had barely uttered the word no when Jeremy pushed past me. “What happened with your dad?”

Jeremy crossed his arms and looked me over. “Well, you don’t look stupid...”

I pushed the front door shut and gritted my teeth. “I know Adam’s in trouble. What I don’t know is how much.”

“Yeah, but you can guess, can’t you?” When my only response was a glare, Jeremy went on, “He’s grounded until the end of time, but that was a given. No phone, no internet, no life. Thanks to you, my little brother is going to be a shut-in until he graduates.”

I dropped into the dining chair next to me, my indignation forgotten. I looked to my future weekends at Dad’s, and I saw myself running out the clock in my room, watching movie after movie with nothing to focus on except the number of fingernails that I hadn’t chewed to the quick. Mom’s wouldn’t be any better now that Mrs. Cho was gone. I’d have school but soccer was over and Cherry and I weren’t talking, and I had all the footage I needed for Venomous Squid so I wouldn’t see Gabe or the guys as much. There’d be no more texting with Adam. No more Adam, period. It was like having the wind knocked out of me. “He can’t.”