I shrug. “It’s fine. I don’t need to go out. See you on Monday.”
“Yeah, have a good night.”
I’m not actually spending the night watching TV. I’m going to spend it coming up with ways to defend myself against Briggs. God only knows what he’s going to do next week, and I need to be prepared. He’s not going to want to drag this out. He’s going to start with the worst possible thing he could do to me. I’m justnot sure what that’ll be. Will he try to go after Charlotte again? If so, I’m prepared. I’ll tell her what he did to me behind the school. How he trapped me there and touched me and almost... I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think he’d take it that far, but I don’t want to believe he couldn’t either. I need to be prepared for anything and everything.
When I get home, my dad’s out back working on the lawnmower.
“What’s wrong with it?” I ask, walking up to him.
“Hey, honey, I didn’t know you’d be home so early.”
“Early? It’s after six.”
“I guess I thought you two were having dinner.” He wipes the sweat off his forehead.
“Charlotte’s going to a dinner party with her parents. Did you eat yet?”
“I had the leftover pizza in the fridge. I would’ve waited if I knew you were coming home.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just eat in my room.” I watch as he takes the metal cover off the mower. “What happened? Did it break?”
“It won’t start. I called the repair guy and he said I need a part. I was going to go get it, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow. I need to do some paperwork tonight.”
“I could go pick it up.”
“It’s not here in town. This is a custom part. The shop’s about an hour away.”
“I don’t mind. It’d give me something to do.”
He looks up from the lawnmower. “You really want to go? It’d save me a trip, but I’m not sure I want you driving out there alone. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“Is the guy that works there a psycho or something?”
“Not at all. He’s an old guy. Kind of reminds me of your grandfather.”
“Then what’s there to be worried about? I’ll go there, get the part, and come home. It’s better than spending all night in my room.”
And it’ll give me time to think. Sometimes I do my best thinking when I’m driving. This will be good.
“Let me go get the money,” my dad says.
We head into the house, and I see a trail of mud on the floor. My dad’s always making a mess and doesn’t even notice. I wonder if he was like that when my mom was alive. She died when I was four, so I really don’t remember.
“He said it’d be one hundred and fifty dollars,” my dad says, handing me the cash. “But I gave you two hundred, just in case.” He winks. “You can keep the change for doing this for me.”
“I get fifty bucks just to pick something up? You got any other errands I could run?”
He smiles. “Not tonight. Oh, you’ll need his card.” He pulls it out of his pocket. “The address is on there and his phone number, in case you get lost. Now hurry up and go. I don’t want you driving out there when it’s dark.”
“Why are you freaking out so much? I’m just driving there and coming home.”
“You’re my kid. I always worry about you.” He goes past me to the door. “Call me when you get there so I know you made it.”
“Yeah, got it.”
When he’s back outside, I scarf down the last slice of leftover pizza, then look up where I’m going. It’s about a forty-minute drive each way, and like my dad said, it does seem to be out in the middle of nowhere.
I grab my keys, get in my truck, and head out of town. It’s a nice drive with winding roads that go through mountainous terrain. There aren’t many towns out here and the few that exist are off the main road. I haven’t even seen a gas station.
