Stay with Me by Paul Griffin Read Free Book Online Page B

with lots of money in our pockets. Ma and Vic are playing slap cards at the bar. Anthony says he’s got to say good-bye to some friends. “Mack buddy, you walk my sis home?”
    “That all right with you?” Mack says.
    “Sure, whatever.” My heart makes a clicking sound. I wonder if he can hear it. I try to cover by nonchalantly swigging a soda, and I spill Pepsi on my boobs. Loo. Ser.
     
    We’re slow-walking the main drag. Kids on Harleys rip up and down the street. Mack clears his throat, says to his worn-out sneakers, “I been to jail. I expect you already know, but I thought I should tell you, just in case. I, some folks are scared to be with folks who been locked up.”
    “No. I mean, no, I’m not scared. This is nice, you walking me home. I appreciate it.” I’m scared to ask, but I have to know. “What happened?”
    He tells me what he did.
    I nod for a long time, and now I clear my throat. “So you never killed anybody.”
    “No. No.”
    “I’m glad. I mean, for you I’m glad. I didn’t mean—”
    “No no, I know.” He nods, still won’t look at me. “I, you, like the other night. The dog. The one that jogged up on us. You was—you were scared.”
    “I was bitten once.”
    His eyes flick to my scars, then away. “Did you try to kiss the dog?”
    “Well I, how did you know?”
    He shrugs.
    We’re in front of CVS now. “Mack?”
    He’s startled, hearing me say his name. “Yep?”
    “I gotta grab a couple of things, okay? Wait here. I’ll be back in five.” I head in. Ma told me to pick up a roll of toilet paper on the way home, because when we wrecked Vic’s car, the four hundred rolls in the trunk got skunked with beer and ketchup. But I don’t want Mack to see me buying a loser item like toilet paper. Figure I’ll pick up the smallest roll Charmin offers, just to get us through Sunday, and hide it under a cool item, perhaps a giant bag of Skittles, for instance.
    CVS is having a huge toilet paper sale. All they have left are sixteen-packs.
    Problem: We’re down to using travel-pack tissues at home. Now I have to walk around with sixteen rolls of Charmin.
    When I come out of the store, two bikers are stopped at a red light. One has his radio blasting some faraway station, more static than music.
    Mack looks weird all of a sudden. Mad. He’s staring at the biker.
    The biker’s friend doesn’t like that. “You got a problem, bitch?”
    “Let’s go,” I say.
    But Mack is someplace else, his eyes locked on the biker.
    The light changes, and the biker’s friend waves off Mack with “Pf, you ain’t nothin’.” The two Harleys jerk away, busting up the night with their sawed-off mufflers. Car alarms go blant-blant-blant .
    He’s back now, sort of. He’s wobbly. He puts his hand on the mailbox to keep his feet. “You know like when you’re crouching, and you stand up too fast?” he says.
    “Except you weren’t.”
    He’s looking at my hand on his arm. He doesn’t pull away this time. He catches his breath. “I can show you how to greet a dog, if you want.”
    “Greet a dog? I’m worried about you. Are you hypoglycemic?” That or he totally dropped a Seconal while I was in CVS. “Here, have some Skittles.” Of course when I pop the bag I spray three trillion Skittles all over the street.
    “My dog,” he says, bending to clean up the Skittles. “I want you to meet her.”
    “Yeah, no, I don’t think so.”
    “She’s the sweetest little pit.” This guy. His eyes. That dark sparkle.
    “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Matt Dillon from The Outsiders ?”
    “That good or bad?”
    “Hello, it’s only one of the best movies ever in the YA genre.”
    “I don’t know a whole lot about movies or . . . whatever that French-soundin’ word you said was. Come drop a hi on my dog.”
    An hour ago, I thought my night would be inventing lies for that stupid Gifted and Talented essay, and now this boy with the dangerous eyes is asking me over to his place to