My body didn’t relax until she left the hall. That had been close. Too close. I needed to be much more careful.
I wanted to close the door, lock it, move the dresser in front of it so she couldn’t get in.
But I could not raise her suspicions. I had to protect the pillow. The phone inside. My notes. My journal. My flowers.
Maybe I should sleep. Then I could stay awake late at night, when I could work without fear.
Read everything. Contact Tucker.
And if Mother scared me in any way, I would call the woman on the card. Get help. She said I could.
I stretched out on the bed, placing my head on the heart pillow. I pinched it until I could feel the solid mass of the phone hidden inside.
Tonight, I’d talk to my boyfriend.
And read the flowers to learn more about who I was.
CHAPTER 8
Tucker
Gram forgave me for giving away my phone, but she made me spend my own money to replace it. It took all my saved allowance. After a stern reminder that we had to be careful with expenses if I was going to community college next year, Gram added a third line to our plan.
I didn’t care. I would work ten jobs to make sure I could keep in contact with Ava.
I was careful about how I texted her. I did it late at night, when I could be the most certain Ava wouldn’t get caught if she accidentally turned on the sound. But I heard nothing. I didn’t know if Ava was still in the hospital. I didn’t know if the phone had been found or confiscated.
What if she’d had another seizure and didn’t remember it was in the pillow?
But I didn’t stop. I sent Ava instructions on how to type. How to send a text. How to make a phone call, if she got that opportunity. I reminded her who I was. Who she was. I told her the story of how we met and what we’d done together.
It was two long days before it finally happened. Mynew phone buzzed with the ringtone that meant my old phone had sent me a message.
Tucker? Are you there?
Over the next weeks, we kept in contact. She told me what her days were like, studying and cooking and reading her notes. Her mother had told her that the neighbor next door should be avoided, but one day an older woman with dark skin had walked onto her back balcony and smiled and waved to Ava in a wistful way. Ava hoped she could talk to her if she ever got a chance.
But that seemed unlikely. Her mother’s paranoia had grown to the point that she never left Ava alone, taking her along on every errand.
I couldn’t currently drive. In Texas, people with epilepsy had to wait three months after a seizure before their license was reinstated. Even though nothing had happened in the hospital, I’d had a bad one a few weeks before. So Bill drove me across town to scope out the situation.
The line of duplexes drooped and sagged. Bill offered to stop in front of them, but I waved him on. Ava was certain she couldn’t get out. The window in her room didn’t even open. I couldn’t risk being seen for nothing.
She told me where they went grocery shopping, one of their few outings. Of course, they would have to go midafternoon on Wednesdays, when we had class.
But Bill and our friend Carlos were game. “We’re seniors,” Bill insisted. “We should have a skip day.”
So the next Wednesday, Bill picked me up for my usual ride to school. We stopped to nab Carlos and spent the morning at the food trailers in SoCo, trying one item on every menu. By the time the afternoon rolled around,Carlos was half sick, and Bill was regretting the chicken sandwich made with doughnuts.
Unlike my Neanderthal friends, I felt supercharged with energy, anxious to get to the grocery store and see Ava again. We waited at the Shelfmart in deep South Austin until Ava and her mother walked into the store. I didn’t dare go up to them. If Ava’s mother saw me, it would tip her off that we’d been in contact.
Ava looked more beautiful than I remembered. She wore a long gray skirt and a white shirt. The guys got stupid and loud, so I ditched them in the condom aisle where they were acting like morons.
I followed Ava at a distance, quickly turning corners, hoping she would see me and know I had made it like we planned.
She waited until her mother was tied up with the man behind the meat counter and said she was going to the bathroom.
I darted down a different aisle and raced for the back hallway. When I turned the corner, Ava walked straight into my arms and kissed me.
