Puddin'(50)

“Yeah,” he says. “I just meant after everything this week.”

“It was just the one thing. So other than that super-public breakup with my longtime boyfriend, I’m totally good.”

“Cool.” He nods a little too aggressively. “Bryce is sort of a punk.”

Surely this is a trap. I squint at him, trying to decipher how to proceed. “Aren’t you friends with him?”

He pushes his fingers through his overgrown curls. “Well, I’m friends with lots of people.”

Oh hell, do I get that. So much of living in a town the size of Clover City means hanging out with people you might not choose for yourself if you lived in a bigger city or went to a bigger school.

I stand up from my stool and grab my trusty glass cleaner to hopefully send this guy packing.

“I better let you get back to work,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice flat. “I’m swamped.”

While he heads off to the weight machines, I get busy spraying whatever free surfaces I can find. If this job has given me one skill, it’s the ability to look hella busy. I should add that to my résumé.

My phone dings, and I pull it from my backpack. I really did miss that sound.

MAMA BEAR: might be a few minutes late picking you up.

“You got your phone back?” Millie turns the corner from the office and sits down on one of the stools.

“Miraculously, yes.” I wipe the last of the glass cleaner from the front door and join her behind the desk. “My mom was really feeling the guilt after this week.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Her voice sounds so concerned that it almost feels fake.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Are you, like, a robot or something?” she asks. I even sense the slightest bit of irritation. “I mean, how do you process stuff without friends to talk to?”

I whip my head around to face her. Oh, she totally just stepped in it. And she knows it. “How do you know I don’t have any friends?” I ask, my voice too high, too sweet.

“Well . . . I just . . .” She stammers for a moment.

This is the problem with nice people. If you’re gonna say something, you have to mean it. “Well,” I say. “You just what?”

She clears her throat into her doughy fist and sits up a little straighter. “I just have noticed that since leaving the dance team, and now with all that happened this week, you seem to be, well, missing some people in your life.”

Sisterhood. The word taunts me as I remember what Sam said to the whole team just hours before Melissa ratted me out and I took a bullet for all of them. “Those bitches were never my friends,” I say. “Nothing in this town is real. It’s not. We’re all just stuck here without any better options, trying to make the best with what we have. And some of us are better at that than others.”

She turns away, focusing on the (very clean, if I do say so myself) window in front of her.

She knows I’m right. The sooner she gets what the reality of living in this town really is, the better.

After a moment, she says, “Callie, I reject that.”

“What?”

“You’re wrong,” she says simply. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”

“Um, okay? With what? Scientifically gathered evidence?”

“No. Maybe. You’re joining my slumber-party club.”

I sputter laughter that I try to cover with a cough. “Your what?”

“My slumber-party club. Well, it’s not an official club. Hannah would kill me if I actually called us that,” she says. “You left all that hay in her locker last year, because your friends decided she looked like a horse. Remember?”

Oh damn. She just called me out. My stomach tenses. It was a sort of asshole thing to do. It was just a joke at the time, but something about the memory makes me uneasy. “That wasn’t me.”

She doesn’t flinch. “Amanda saw you.”

“Who’s Amanda?” I ask.

She grins, but it’s too polite to be genuine. “Amanda sees lots of things. But you’ll know her when you see her. Anyway, tonight is Ellen’s turn to host. I think y’all used to work together.”

“No,” I tell her. “No thank you. Definitely not.” I have no interest in seeing Ellen Dryver. No one ditches Callie Reyes. Except for Ellen Dryver apparently.

“You can’t say something like what you said about nothing in this town being real without giving me the chance to prove you wrong.”

“I’m grounded,” I tell her. “Remember?”

“For now,” she says.

I roll my eyes, but she’s already hard at work printing membership applications.

After work, Mom is late like she said she’d be, so I plop down on the curb and wait.

“Where’s your ride?” asks Millie.

“Late.”

She lowers herself down beside me. “I’ll wait with you.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“Well, I do unnecessary things all the time.”

I pull out my phone and scroll through my various social media accounts. It’s moments like these that I’m happier than I can even describe to have my phone back. No awkward small talk with Millie Michalchuk. No thank you.