Scam by Lesley Choyce Read Free Book Online Page B

the pew and quietly sat down beside her. I sat like that for maybe five minutes—watching her sleep, watching her breathe, realizing how important this girl was to me.
    And then I touched her shoulder. She gasped, sat up, looked at me. And then she reached up and hugged me.
    When we walked out into the sunlight, we both had to shield our eyes. We hadn’t even spoken a word.
    “Your mom says the funeral is tomorrow,” I said.
    “I’m not going,” she said resolutely.
    “I understand,” I said. “But you should be there for your parents.”
    “Screw them. My parents were never there for me when I needed them.”
    “But they’re still your parents,” I said, knowing that sounded lame. “You should at least go home. Let them see you’re okay.”
    “I’m not going home.”
    “Then come with me,” I said.
    As we walked to the group home, we went past the old warehouse wall that Caleb had tagged. I tried to distract Lindsey so she wouldn’t see the balloon letters of Yo-Yo , but she stopped, stared up at the name for a minute and then looked away. I took her hand.
    Darren must have seen us walking up the driveway. In an instant, he must have read the riot act to Kyle, Noah and Connor, because they were all sitting in a kind of stunned silence in the kitchen as we walked in.
    “You must be Lindsey,” Darren said.
    She nodded.
    “You need a place to stay?”
    She nodded again.
    “Why don’t you take over Josh’s room?” Darren said. “Noah can bunk with Connor, and I’m sure Josh wouldn’t mind sleeping on the sofa.”
    Connor glared at Noah, but he didn’t say a word. Noah nodded agreeably, but Kyle looked a little shell-shocked that I had brought a girl to the house.
    Lindsey and I sat in the backyard for a long time, but we didn’t say much.
    I thought maybe she was settling down, but I was wrong. “Everything about being around this town is just too painful. I mean, you saw me back there. I’m not gonna be able to go hardly anywhere without my brother calling out to me from some wall. I’ve got some money. I could just pick up and go. Go somewhere else and put this all behind me.”
    I had a lot of things I wanted to say, but I was afraid of saying the wrong thing. I had her here now. I wouldn’t say too much, but I wouldn’t let her slip away.
    Later, I asked her if it was okay for me to call her parents and let them know she was all right. She said no, but after I pushed, she agreed that I could call them as long as I didn’t let them know where she was. Just that she was okay. I called and was relieved when I got their voice mail. I told them Lindsey was okay and would call the next day. In the evening my roommates were quiet and respectful, even Connor. Whatever threat Darren had made must have been a good one.
    I got up about twenty times from the sofa in the living room during the night to make sure she was still in my room. In the morning everyone else left the house to go work at the summer day camp. Lindsey and I sat alone in the kitchen, drinking some truly awful coffee that Darren had made. Today was the day of Caleb’s funeral. I didn’t know the time or the place. But today was the day.
    “You saved me that day, you know?” I said.
    “What day?”
    “The day you stole my wallet.”
    “How did that save you?”
    “Well, if you hadn’t stolen my wallet, I wouldn’t have run after you. And you wouldn’t have gone to the church with me.”
    “What would you have done?”
    “I don’t know. Like you, I was thinking about maybe just going away.”
    “Where?”
    “Anywhere.”
    “So you understand?”
    “Yes. But I also understand that I owe you.”
    “How?” she asked.
    “It won’t work. If you go away, everything back here will seem like crap to you. You won’t be able to let it go, and you won’t be able to put it behind you. It will always be there. It will always be unfinished. And you’ll be unhappy.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “No. No bullshit. It’s true.