Every Other Weekend(19)

The doorknob was tried again, easier this time. “Adam, you all right? Do you need anything?”

Jeremy answered for me. “He’s fine. He’s gonna stay here and sleep it off.”

There was a conversation that I couldn’t quite follow, but it ended with Jeremy convincing Dad that they should go and leave me to rest in quiet.

“We’ll bring you something back in case you feel better later,” Dad said. “You have my cell.” The front door opened and shut a minute later.

“You’re not really sick, are you?” she asked, eyeing me.

“No, this is my normal skin tone. I’m pale.”

“So can I hang out for a while? Not all night or anything, just until Shelly falls asleep?”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting on the foot of the bed and feeling pretty good about the fact that I’d gotten rid of Jeremy and Dad so easily. “Stay as long as you want.”

She beamed at me, and when I felt my flush start to creep back again, she took pity on me and glanced around my room. “So this is nice. It’s like the cheap motel room from a slasher flick.” Her eyebrows flicked up. “You know, cozy.”

I looked around. That seemed accurate.

“Don’t feel bad. Your apartment could be dripping with blood and I’d still find it infinitely more appealing than mine.”

“Shelly?” I asked, my gaze catching on the apple orchard picture above the bed.

“Aren’t you the smart one?”

I didn’t feel smart. I felt...compelled. My focus had strayed from her for only seconds at a time since I’d walked in. She demanded my complete attention without seeming to try. Plus she talked a lot. Sometimes her voice would get a little strangled as she ran out of air, but she’d force another sentence or two out before drawing in a massive breath and continuing. Shelly had struck me that way, too, but her nonstop talking had felt smothering. With Jolene, I didn’t mind.

She wandered around the room, looking in drawers and peeking into the closet. All my stuff was in my bag, so I let her.

“Want me to help you unpack?”

“Why?”

“Aren’t you going to unpack?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

Jolene dropped onto the corner of the bed. Her brown hair was so long that she was practically sitting on it. I’d never seen anyone with hair that long in real life. “You want some advice? Divorce kid to divorce kid?” She immediately raised her palms when I started to object. “Sorry, divorce kid to separated kid.” It was clear from her tone that she considered that distinction a technicality. I felt that irritation from our first meeting stir to life. “Don’t waste your energy on the small stuff.”

“Small stuff?”

“Yeah, you know, tiny acts of rebellion like living out of a suitcase and—”

“Smoking?”

Her mouth twitched and she bit back a smile, the slight movement effectively snuffing out my irritation. “Okay, yes, and smoking. Although in my defense, I have to focus on stuff that speaks for me even when I’m not here since I’ve barely laid eyes on my dad in months. The last time he stood outside my door and begged me to go to dinner with him—” she gestured toward my door “—was, oh, never.”

“Seriously?”

“No,” she said, plucking at her braid. “I’m making it up so you’ll pity me.”

Why did she have to say stuff like that? “Sorry.”

“Yes, he is, so let’s not talk about him. Let’s talk about you.” She scrambled up on her knees again and took out her braid so she could comb through the snarls with her fingers. “You still haven’t told me what your mom thought about our picture. Good, right?”

I blinked at her. In that moment I was sucked back to Mom and me standing in the kitchen and the expression on her face when I showed her the photo. I couldn’t think about it without seeing it through her eyes, without seeing Greg.

“Let me guess.” Jolene rolled onto her stomach and hung her upper body over the edge to search under the bed, her impossibly long hair pooling on my floor. “She thinks I’m way too pretty for you. Don’t feel bad,” she added. “When you grow into your ears, you are going to be intolerably cute.” That was when she looked up and saw my flushed face that had nothing to do with her teasing and everything to do with the thing about Greg. “Oh, wow, are you sensitive.” She twisted and sat up to face me, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I was messing with you. And even if I wasn’t, that would put you at tolerably cute now. Tolerably cute is still cute, Adam. Plus, I like your ears. They’re the first part of you to light up like Rudolph when you get embarrassed.”

As if on command, I felt blood rush to my ears.

“Honestly, it’s more than tolerably cute, but you probably already know that. Hey, is that why you blush so much? Can you control it like a flirting superpower?”

She’d been talking so much that she’d completely pulled me back from the brink without even knowing I’d been there or why. The sadness that lingered in the recesses of my mind when I thought of Greg receded further as Jolene’s gap-toothed grin filled my vision and kicked up my own lips. And she thought I had superpowers.

“Come on, what did your mom think of the picture?”