“No, Matt! I can’t just pry into a student’s personal information.”
Matt stared at his screen, tapping and swiping, then finally turning the screen toward Gideon. “There. She lives on Redbud Avenue.”
Gideon took a screenshot and spun toward the door, but Matt grabbed his arm.
“Gideon, I want you to do the narration. You’re excellent, and—”
“Megs hasn’t auditioned yet.”
Matt’s lips flattened into a line. “I don’t think—”
“Megs hasn’t auditioned yet.” Gideon gave his friend a final look, then stormed out the studio door.
Megs curled up nextto her mom on the bed under a flannel blanket. Their lone island in a sea of boxes. The widescreen illuminated their faces as they watched Arachnophobia with Bobbi through the laptop.
"Oh my gosh, the blow torch!" Bobbi groaned.
Megslaughed. “How? How does that not kill it immediately?”
“Or burn the house down.”
This was perfect. It had been months since the three of them had a girl’s night, and Megs didn’t realize how much she missed it.
On Monday, they’d leave this house. It already looked nothing like home, with all the pictures off the wall and the shelves emptied. Megs reached down for her phone and realized she’d left it charging in her room.
Gideon had texted her the night before, and she’d tried to come up with a response but couldn’t. So she was avoiding it. Her special superpower.
“You okay?” Her mother rubbed her shoulder.
“Mmhmm.” Megs nodded and focused on the exterminator’s on-screen battle with the eight-legged monsters. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. If she cried during Arachniphobia, Bobbi would never let her live that down.
She wasn’t sad about what she’d said in the admin office. That had been easier than expected, almost a relief if she was being honest. She was sad because she missed him. It had only been a couple of days, and already her body felt starved.
Megs saw his face when she closed her eyes. The way Gideon’s eyes focused when he explained something in class, or the dimple on his cheek that only appeared when his smile was wide. Or when he sucked on a straw, which still didn’t make sense to her.
She missed his sense of humor, and how easy it was to talk to him. To be herself.
“Remember when you girls built a fort in the living room and broke the chandelier?” her mom asked.
Bobbi snorted. “You weren’t that chill about it when it happened.”
“Hey, I was a single mother with twenty-three dollars of wiggle room in my budget.”
Megs turned to her. “How did you replace it?”
Sylvia smiled like she had a secret. “Frank had an extra.”
Bobbi leaned into the camera, and her face distorted on the screen. “Mom, that wasfifteen years ago. How did it take you so long to finally get together?”
Their mother scoffed. “Oh, as ifyoucan lecture me on taking too long to get together, Bobbi.”
Megs burst out laughing. “Where is Ben tonight, by the way?”
“He’s on a backpacking trip.”
“You didn’t want to go?” Sylvia raised an eyebrow.
“Mom, it’s going to be negative twenty tonight.”
