“No. I’m not.” I nod at the door. “You go.” Geesh. She’s getting on my last nerve. Everybody knows someone with a broken heart just wants to be left alone, but not Deena. No. Deena keeps hovering. Pestering.
“Get. Up.” She’s sounding sort of snippy now.
I guess repeating myself is what I’m doing today. “I’m not going. You go. Leave me in peace.”
Deena turns like she’s going to the door, but that’s not what she does. I watch her arms go up and her hands cover her face. I can see her shoulders slumping at first; they’re shaking. Is she laughing at me? When she suddenly turns to face me, she lowers her hands, and that’s when I see she’s definitely not laughing. She’s crying.
“Deena? What’s wrong?” This woman never cries.
“I’m scared.”
“Scared? About what?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes.You.I’ve never seen you like this. So down. I can’t take it. I’ve tried to think of ways to make you feel better.”
And she has tried. She’s offered to stay home from a night out after I refused to go, to watch movies with me, she’s said the word “makeover” about twenty times this week, and now she thinks going to the place wherehegoes is going to make me feel better.
It’s not.
“That’s when I finally realized what you need.”
“Which is?”
“Punching something. Hard.”
Don’t forget kicking something. Like Lucky’s face. And my brother’s, for that matter.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe what I need to do is get out of bed. Put on some clean clothes. I stare at Deena for a minute or two. “I’ll go—”
“Yay.” She claps and bounces up and down.
“If.” I hold up my finger. “We drive past Lucky’s house like ninjas to see if he’s home. If he’s home…” I’ll know he’s not at Smith’s Gym. “I’ll go to the gym.”
“Deal.” She turns to my dresser, opens up the second drawer, and pulls out a tee. “Put this on. That one”—she points at me—“is disgusting.”
It is. It really is, because I have been changing back into the same clothesas soon as I walk in the door from class for several days. It can’t be helped.
Reluctantly, I throw back my comforter and slide out of bed. Weird. I’m sore. Even more slowly, I take the shirt from Deena and search for my sports bra.
Behind me, she claps three times. “Chop, chop. Class is in twenty minutes. If you want to drive by your brother’s place, you’ll need to get the lead out.”
“I’m hurrying.”
* * *
“The coast is clear,”Deena whispers to me from up ahead.
We drove by my brother’s place, and Lucky’s car was parked on the street. Without even discussing it, Deena drove us straight to the gym. I let her walk in first. I don’t know why I’m still tentative.
Once we find a spot in the back of class that lets us see what the instructor is doing and sort of hides us from her wrath, I feel myself relax a little bit.
He’s not here.
Which is essential, because I’m not ready to face him.
