“HA! I knew you had a thing for the neighbor girl!” Tane pointed accusingly at me as if he had just uncovered a conspiracy.
He was terrible when it came to names.
“Her name’s Tori.” I ran my tongue over my teeth. “Getting hard to remember names already, old man?”
Tane gasped. “I’m only fifteen years older than you, dingus.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’.”
“Bloody rude.” He inspected the paper again. “Not sure I want to give you this now.”
I held out my hand and made a grabbing motion. “Fucking try me. Give it here before I take it from you by force.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Shit. It’s like that, aye?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” I shrugged.
“Riiight. Keep telling yourself that.” With a smirk, he rounded the kitchen island and slapped the pink paper into my still open palm. “Let me know how that goes for you.”
My fingers greedily closed around it, clutching it like Tane was about to rip it away from me again.
“Yeah, nah. I’m good.”
“Don’t fuck it up!” he called over his shoulder, chuckling to himself as he disappeared into the living room.
Tosser.
Tori
Judging by the tone of her texts, I could tell Mom had been getting a bit worried.
I'd been avoiding her for a couple of weeks, and this had only really worked because Gran was warfooting it with technology in general, and Mom worked nights so often, our waking hours only overlapped slightly.
Nevertheless, I could tell I was getting close to alarming her, so when my phone buzzed again, I decided to answer it.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her relief was immediate. “Oh, sweetheart. I’ve been trying to catch you for days!”
“Yeah, sorry.” I forced a smile onto my face, hoping it would reflect in my voice. “Just … busy.”
“With school?”
Knife. Twist.
“Mhm.”
“Oh yeah?” I could hear the clinking of dishes in the background. “You keeping up okay? Eating? Sleeping?”
The basics, as always. She would forever be checking if I’d remembered how to be a functioning human.
“Totally. Fine. Great, actually.”
Lie. Lie. Lie.
“That makes me so happy,” she breathed, and a pang of guilt hit me. “I worry, you know. But you always land on your feet. You’re just like your grandmother.”
Don’t know about that, Mom.
