A Girl Called Dust by V.B. Marlowe Read Free Book Online

was cool. My older
sister was really into drama, so she had him every year. He taught her a lot.
Now she’s doing plays at her university.”
    “I never had him, but he seemed like a
nice guy.”
    Wiley flicked the radio on and
surprisingly, classical music blared from the speakers. I tried not to laugh. I
liked different music too, but I hadn’t expected Wiley to be into Chopin.
    “My grandma likes Chopin too,” I said.
    Wiley gave me a blank stare, and I
realized how my comment could be taken as an insult. “I didn’t mean it like
that.”
    He shrugged and turned the music down. “My
dad was using my truck earlier, and he loves this stuff.” But he didn’t bother
to change the music. We paused at a four-way stop sign, and Wiley looked at me
again. “What were you and your boyfriend fighting about?”
    Had he heard anything? He couldn’t have.
He was too far away and his engine was running. Maybe he could tell we were
arguing from our body language. “Fletcher isn’t my boyfriend.” Even though I
was mad at him, it hurt to say those words. “And we weren’t really fighting. We
just had a disagreement.”
    Wiley nodded as if he understood. “You
should think about making some new friends. That Fletcher dude’s a nut.
Something’s wrong with him.”
    I gripped the straps of my backpack. I
hated when people talked like that about Fletcher even though I understood.
Fletcher made it easy for people to think those things, but they didn’t know
him like I did.
    “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just
different, and there’s nothing wrong with different.”
    Wiley sighed and turned onto the street
that led to my house. “If you say so. If you want to, we can hang out. What
happened to Mr. Thompson was pretty scary. I’m sure you’d like some company.”
    I would have liked some company,
Fletcher’s if he hadn’t been acting so weird.
    “Hang out?” Just getting into the car with
him had been a huge step for me. I didn’t think I could handle hanging out.
    “Yeah, my parents are at work. We can
watch some Netflix and . . .”
    I knew where this was going, and
thankfully he pulled into my driveway. I only realized then that Wiley had
known the way to my house without me giving him directions. He’d never been to
my house before.
     “That’s okay. I think I’m going to
use this time to catch up on some schoolwork.”
    He reached over and rested his hand on my
knee. Something about his touch made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on
end and not in a good way. “You know what Mr. Thompson’s favorite saying was? Carpe
diem . Seize the day. If he were still alive, he’d want you to use this time
to do something you’d enjoy.”
    Yeah. That wouldn’t include spending
another second with Wiley. I shoved his hand away. Was Wiley really using a
dead man to make a move on me? I mean, what did I look like to him?
    “Dust . . .”
    And he was still calling me Dust.
    “You’re stressed out. You know what the
number-one stress reliever is?”
    I popped the passenger-side door open.
“Thanks for the ride, but I’m sure you can find another girl to watch Netflix
and chill with.” I didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in my voice. It felt
like he had seen me walking down the sidewalk and thought, Hey, she looks
easy. Let me give it a go.
    “Okay,” he called out of the window as I
headed for my front door. “We can hang out some other time when you’re more up
to it.” I waved absently over my head and let myself into the house.
    My mother was a stay-at-home mom. I found
her in the kitchen wiping down the counters with Lysol wearing her DOMESTIC
DIVA apron, gabbing away on the phone. “Oh, hold on, Sharon,” she said when she
saw me. “Hey, honey. I heard. I’m so sorry about—”
    I didn’t want to talk about Mr. Thompson.
“I was normal, Mom. I let Bruce Wiley give me a ride home, and he tried to get
in my pants, well, under my dress, I guess. Is that normal enough for