“Kruger.” He types something back, still chuckling. “He’s going as The Dude.”
“Which dude?”
Kai looks up, smiling through a frown. “TheDude. You know.” When my eyebrows lift another quarter inch, he sighs. “From The Big Lebowski?”
I shake my head. “My dad pawned our TV back when I was seven…or did you forget?”
“Shit, yeah.” Kai whistles low, hitting send on his reply, then tossing his phone back onto the table. “Can’t wait for you to meet Kruger. He’s super chill.”
The warm and fuzzies disappear. Kai’s not the weirdo loner he used to be back when we were kids. He has friends now. People to text. People who make him laugh. People he can hang out with whenever.
And I have…
I check my phone like something might have changed in the last ten minutes. The notification screen is as empty as my contact list.
Nothing from Melissa.
Nothing from Bastian.
Nothing from anyone…as if thereisanyone else.
“Melissa text you back yet?” Kai’s voice pulls me back.
“Nope.” I set my phone face-down on the couch. “It’s been five days, Kai.”
His expression softens. “You think something’s off?”
I drag a hand through my hair. “I’m probably just overreacting. It could be anything. Family emergency. Mental health crisis.”
But even as I say it, I don’t believe it.
“Maybe she’s in rehab or something,” Kai says.
“Rehab?” I snort. “She’s not an alcoholic.”
“Drugs,” Kai says it like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world.
“She took mollyonce—” I start, but Kai speaks over me.
“She does coke.”
“What? No she doesn’t.”
“You know she dated Ezra, right?”
I blink at him. “Yeah? And?”
“She tell youwhereshe met him?”
I shake my head. “She didn’t say much about him.” The lie sends a warm flush up my neck.
Kai takes a sucker out of his pocket, unwrapping it before he speaks again, his word’s muffled around the sweet. “Rehab.”
I shove my textbook off my lap, rocking forward so I can slide my legs under me. “No way! She’s been in rehab? For what?Drugs?” The last is a whisper-shout.
He nods, looking smug as he twirls his sucker around in his mouth.
“Coke.”
