Page 55

She yelps. “Are you serious?”

I look around me again before I reply. “Yes. I mean, we’ll need to find a place, and I don’t have a lot saved. Do you?”

“Not a penny.”

I wince. I was sort of hoping, naively, that she’d be able to pull her weight.

“What about your job this summer? And the graduation money from your grandmother?”

“I spent most of it. You know how that goes. But I’ll find a job as soon as we get to LA. You won’t have to cover me for long.”

It’s less than ideal. I have enough for perhaps three months’ rent somewhere, that’s it. “Okay,” I tell her. “Let’s look for something cheap.”

Over the next few days, Hailey and I look online in our spare time, finally settling on a group house where they’ve agreed to let us share a room for twelve hundred a month.

On the pastor’s first day back at work—we were told he’d be up and about, but he’s barely moved from his favorite chair all week—I meet Hailey at a coffee shop halfway between us to be interviewed by our prospective housemates over Skype.

They’re older, and male. I’d rather not live with men, but they seem nice enough, and Hailey tells me I’m being paranoid, so I reluctantly agree.

She squeals as she walks me out to my bike. “We’re really doing it!”

We really are. I’m sad about leaving Danny, heartbroken by the possibility we might not even be friends when this is done, but also hopeful for the first time in a long while.

I want to drink. I want to dance. I want to be kissed by someone who’s desperate to do it, not terrified. So I bike home, dreaming more of freedom than of what I’m giving up—of being able to hang pictures on the wall or stay out all night. I can eat potato chips for breakfast and Cap’n Crunch for dinner. I can sleep until noon. Not that those are things I’m necessarily dying to do. They’re just things I couldn’t possibly do, until now.

I get to the house, surprised to see the pastor is already home. I’ll have to wait until Donna’s alone to tell her I’m leaving, because the pastor always seems to be questioning my motivations—even suggesting a new song for Sunday’s service gets a side-eye from him and a gentle, “Is there something wrong with the song that was planned, Juliet?”

I walk in to find him on the phone, and Donna sitting at the table, her hands clasped tight. “Oh, honey,” she says, rising and throwing her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re here. Danny hurt his knee at training. He’s been wanting to talk to you.”

I never took my phone off silent after the interview. I pull it out of my back pocket—I have seven missed calls.

“The pastor’s talking to the orthopedist right now, but I think he might need surgery.”

I sink into a chair. Poor Danny. He worked out all summer, hoping this was going to be his season. I think he clung to the idea even harder, watching Luke’s star begin to rise. “I guess there’s still next year.”

Her shoulders sag. “I don’t know. Danny’s worried he might get cut, and if he does, he’ll lose his scholarship. We don’t have enough saved to cover the difference if that happens.”

“They can do that?” Danny has endured two years of practices and sitting on the sidelines, has given up weeks of his summer for training camp…all to lose his scholarship now? It would be so fucking unfair.

She nods. “He could get financial aid, obviously, but then he’d have loans to pay back before we could start our mission. I guess we’ll just have to pray for the best.” Her hand lands atop mine. “I sure am glad you’re here though.”

For a moment, I’d forgotten about my plans entirely. Plans I’m going to have to abandon.

Leaving is one thing. Leaving now…is too selfish, even for me. I just sent twenty-four hundred dollars via PayPal an hour ago—our deposit, our first month’s rent—and I never even set foot outside the city limits.

I text Hailey to let her know I can’t do LA after all, and she asks if I’m joking. When I tell her I’m not, she replies with a simple, “Fuck you, Juliet”, and I don’t hear from her again.

Which seems…fitting.

I’ve just lost my only friend. I’m remaining in Rhodes. I’m taking the internship.

I was right to bet on Luke rather than myself. From the moment I came into the world, I’ve been hearing, in one way or another, that it would be better if I hadn’t appeared at all.

Today, at last, I agree. I’m never going anywhere.

* * *

Donna flies down to San Diego, spending money they don’t have to do it. Between what insurance won’t cover for Danny’s surgery and the cost of the trip, they’re stretched thin.