I didn’t talk to Mr. Williams. There’s nothing to say.

  “Sorry the boy I have a crush on ruined a perfect year. His dad is a famous asshole, and it’s got him a bit messed up.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to make anything better for anyone.

  My dad’s car is sitting in the school parking lot as we clear the speed bump on our way in. He’s leaning against the driver’s side looking on his phone, but I see the parental lines of worry when his head flips up as we come closer. The bus brakes puff with our stop, and I regret sitting up front when the doors flip open. I’m first to get off right behind my teacher.

  I slump down the bus steps and hold up a hand to wave to my dad. He does the same, but that edge of concern is still written in his expression. My paranoia has me convinced that Jesse’s outburst brought cops racing down our street, swat teams descending on my house to question my parents about the neighbor boy in a band. It’s ridiculous, I know, but my dad rarely wears distress on his face.

  Always shiny, always plastic, always pretending everything is fine.

  I help unload our equipment from the bus, carrying my drum and harness to the band room alongside Josh. He hasn’t said a word since our performance ended. I know he’s just as disappointed as I am. We waddle our way through the main door to the back of the room and before I set my drum down, Josh nudges his elbow into mine. I glance first at my arm then up to him. His jaw flexes with his forced smile.

  “It’s okay,” he lifts a shoulder to sell me on the idea that this isn’t a big deal.

  “No it’s not,” I say back fast.

  “Yeah, but we’re friends, so I thought I’d lie.”

  I blink at him a few times before cracking a smile.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I unload my drum next to his, and we walk out together. I’m tempted to ask him for a ride just to avoid whatever it is my dad has on his mind, but that’s not how we operate in my family. We don’t make more drama, we erase it.

  My dad’s forced smile lifts his eyebrows as I close in on him.

  “So where’s the trophy?” He knows I don’t really get a trophy for this, but he asks every time. I wish they would just come to one of my competitions, but that would mean closing the store, and there’s a weird guilt attached to one of them coming without the other. Basically, though, it means I get none.

  “In the room. Mounted with all the others,” I say.

  “Ah,” he nods, opening his door as I tug on the passenger one. We both get in and buckle up, and after he turns over the engine, I admit we sucked.

  “We blew it,” I say.

  He nods again, worry lines back in place.

  “Spill it,” I insist as he looks to his rearview mirror and pulls us forward and around the parking lot.

  My dad lets out a full breath.

  “You have a gentleman caller waiting for you to get home,” he finally says.

  I flutter my eyes closed.

  “I see,” I say.

  We leave the parking lot and pull out to the main road.

  “So this guy…he’s the guy in the band?” My dad likes indirect questioning.

  “Uh huh…among other guys in the band,” I say, giving my best indirect answer.

  Dad nods. We clear the first two stoplights and cruise onto the main road before he gets into the meat of it all.

  “Are you on drugs?” My dad blurts it out and shifts in his seat, making brief eye contact with me.

  “No!” I fire back. I sit on my hands until I realize that makes me look guilty, so instead, I wrap them together in my lap.

  “Good…good.” My dad exhales and his body sinks into the seat, more relaxed.

  “Yeah…no, Dad. I’m not on drugs.” I repeat it just to make it abundantly clear, but also to process what’s coming next in my head. Jesse is at my house. He’s my “gentleman caller” as my dad so humorously put it. And he’s high. Not obviously to most people, but to my dad, yeah…he would see it and be able to tell. He can tell because he used to get high too.

  That’s another thing we don’t talk about.

  When we turn the corner toward home, I start to stiffen, bracing myself for whatever version of Jesse I’m bound to get in the next two minutes. Rag’s car is sitting in my driveway, and I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

  My dad pulls up alongside Rag’s vehicle.

  “It’s a pretty sweet ride.”

  I lean forward and look out at the shape of it with my dad. He’s always loved the classics.

  “Seventy-nine?” He asks as if I know.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  We sit in the quiet of the front seats for a few more seconds with all of those questions he won’t ask and subjects we don’t talk about swirling around. He abruptly kills the engine and plasters on the tight-lipped smile before opening his door.

  “All righty. You ready?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. The door closes on the last bit of his sentence. I let him go in before me, and the more seconds that pass without him coming to check on me, the more resolute I am that I’m not going inside. Not while the gentleman caller is there, anyway. I’ll wait right here.

  An awkward twenty minutes passes before Rag comes out of my house. I look past him, for his cousin, but he’s alone. Jesse must be inside.

  I press the unlock button on my door and Rag opens the driver’s side and climbs in. His legs are longer than my dad’s, so he reaches down between his knees and slides the seat back to make room for his lanky body before shutting his door.

  He twists enough to his side to fold his arms over his chest and look me in the eyes.

  “What’s up?”

  I laugh out a short breath with a crooked smile.

  “Oh, you know, just hiding in my dad’s stuffy sedan and avoiding talking to Jesse in front of my parents,” I say.

  Rag leans his head back with a short chuckle.

  “Right. Well, good job. But…” He leans into me a little and points with his thumb over his shoulder. “He ain’t in there.”

  I jerk forward and look back at my closed front door.

  “Was he here before?” I blink back to Rag.

  He leans to his other side and reaches into his pockets pulling out a well-worn pack of gum. He holds it out for me to take a piece, but gross—pocket melt. I shake my head. He shrugs and pulls a wrinkled stick out for himself.

  “Haven’t seen him in four hours,” he says.

  I flip my vision to the other side, out my window and down the street to Jesse’s quiet house.

  “Not there either,” he answers my silent question.

  I breathe in long and deep through my nose.

  “He’s fine. He does that sometimes. Needs to blow off steam and get rid of his energy, I guess. He gets destructive and shit.”

  “Destructive?” I don’t like that part.

  Rag shrugs.

  His tongue pushes through his gum forming a small bubble he snaps against the roof of his mouth. My chest feels heavy from the day, heavy at the thought of Jesse out somewhere being destructive.

  “Should we look for him?” I finally ask.

  Rag just chews with his lips closed tight. His jaw clicks a little with the movement. He turns to face me more and settles his head on the headrest to his right, then stops his chewing motion completely.

  “You know he’s got issues, right?”

  My brow pulls in and I shake his question off.

  “Yeah…of course.” And it’s true. I do know. I probably know better than most, other than Rag, but yet the reality is still a little tough to confront.

  Rag’s stare lingers on me, and when my face starts to feel warm under his inspection, I look down to my knees where I’ve suddenly begun twisting my hands.

  Issues. We all have issues.

  “You’re a great drummer, Arizona.”

  I flit my gaze back to him, but just briefly, because compliments make me uncomfortable and this one feels really weird.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  It gets oddly quiet again. It feels like a game of chicken to see who will break and talk or move first. Eventually, Rag’s phone buzzes and he shifts to read a text. I want to look, see if it’s Jesse, but I assume that it is. He reads it and lets his eyes linger on his screen for a few seconds, and without looking me in the eyes again, he says “just don’t let him drag you down the rabbit hole.”

  He’s gone in the next breath.

  Chapter Ten

  There is something abundantly satisfying about bubble wrap. Specifically, it’s the way it feels when I press the pocket of air between my thumb and index finger and apply pressure. I’ve started popping them in a pattern. I’m making a heart—or, at least, my best attempt at a spoiled bubble-wrap heart. One could maybe read into the fact that it’s all popped and deflated…like mine.

  I should call Sam. We haven’t talked since she passed out in my bed and I left her to find her way out. She usually comes to visit me when I work at the store. It’s nearly noon, which means she’s either sleeping in or ignoring me because she’s still pissed about Jesse. I need her best-friend advice now, though. I wish she was already up to speed on things…my fault she isn’t.

  I lay my phone flat on the counter, next to my bubble sheet, and press to call her, putting my phone on speaker. It takes her a few rings to answer, because she’s pretending she’s busy, but I know better. Her hello isn’t a sleepy one; it’s the grudge one.

  I deserve that.

  A little. I did let her snore her way through the night in my bed while breathing rum and God-knows-what else at my face.

  “I love bubble wrap,” I say to her greeting. I snap a few near my phone for effect.

  “I know you do,” my friend says. I snap another and smile because she’s going to forgive me. Now I just need to figure out how to start talking about Jesse.

  “Got second yesterday. At State.”

  I pop three in a row.

  “Cool…or is that not cool? Sorry, really, I have no idea what any of that means. I can’t believe you have competition for band.” I give a middle finger to the phone. She said that to be mean because she knows I take those little digs personally. If she were here I’d flip her off to her face.

  “Feel better now?” I ask, pushing my thumb down hard for a rewarding pop.

  Sam sighs, drawling out a half-yawn like a Southern belle freshly awakened by the scent of lilies and ready to have birds sing in her window to welcome the morning.

  “I do. Yes. Thank you,” she says.

  I smirk then pop.

  “Good. Well now that that’s done, I need you to help me figure out what I’m supposed to do. With Jesse.” I hear the excited gasp she makes but tries to mask. Sam has always loved drama. I can’t fault her. It’s easier when it’s not your own, and I’m usually pretty drama-free on account that we don’t talk about painful things of the past in my house.

  Sweep, sweep. Rug, rug.

  “Hit me with it,” she says.

  I’ve obliterated the bubble-wrap heart, so I swipe it off the end of the counter and let it fall into the trash. I pull out a section of packing paper instead and tear it as straight as I can into a perfect square, folding it with hope it will somehow turn into actual origami. I’ve never been able to make any of those things.

  “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “His kissing,” my friend interjects. “The rest will sort itself out, but right now I want to hear about his kissing.”

  I blush and shift so I’m sitting on the counter and balancing my legs on a stack of boxes against the wall. My thumb automatically moves to my mouth, giving a sideways brush across my bottom lip to spark memory. I smile against it, imagining how many times Jesse’s lips have been here.

  “The kissing is good,” I admit. I’m a little drunk on the memories and it comes out in my voice. Sam giggles.

  “Give me the first one. Deets. The first lovely and awkward and oh-so-hot kiss,” she begs.

  “Hmmmm,” I pause, not sure if I should share. I decide to keep it special, and I skip right over to the make-out night in his room when rehearsal was cancelled. Those kisses are the juicy ones, and that’s all Sam really cares about. When she starts to pry about his hands and where they went, I cut our gab session short and dig into the real reason I brought Jesse up.

  “He’s moody,” I say, repeating the word she used to describe him.

  “I know!” She feels vindicated.

  She’s missing the point, but I’m not really explaining…not really. I sigh and kick down to the ground so I can pace around the store. I love being here on Sundays. Nobody ships, because nothing is really going out today anyhow. It’ll just sit here until the morning. And why bother packing if nothing will ship? I come in on Sundays to clean and pop bubble wrap.

  “I mean it in a different way, like…” I pause, humming a little to myself while I try to find the right word for the way Jesse just is. “Manic, maybe.”

  Manic for sure. I just fret at the label. It’s taboo in my house as is talking about anything other than how perfect and calm and happy we all are at all times, even though we’re a tangled mess underneath everything.

  “I can see that,” Sam says, chewing through her words. She’s crunching on something, probably the celery she eats whenever she’s hungry because she’s so afraid of carbs. Funny how easy it is for her to talk about mental health but she can’t talk about bread and gluten. Me? I can pasta-chat all night and day, but throw out a mere mention of the blue pill I still take every night and I snap shut like an oyster with a perfect pearl.

  “He know about Ella?” Her question freezes my steps. I’ve mentioned my sister to Sam, in passing, but we’ve never talked in-depth about her and her struggles. I had to explain the meds I take the first time Sam slept over at my house, but beyond that, Ella rarely ever came up.

  “A little,” I gulp.

  Her closed-lip crunch rattles through my phone speaker; I lower the volume, which only raises my awareness of the long quiet filling the next several seconds. My friend is more intuitive than I give her credit for, and I’m not much better than my parents at talking about things. I’m humiliated of the shame I bring to it… that embarrassment over this part of me and my family and my mind is there at all.

  “You should probably just talk to him about it then. You know…ask questions? He’d probably tell you anything you want to know.” She punctuates her wise words with more crunching, and I laugh silently at the paradox. That was some smart shit she just said, yet she followed it up with Bugs Bunny sounds.

  “You’re right,” I say.

  “Ha! Yeah…I usually am,” she brags.

  I shake my head because really…no, she’s not. She’s hardly ever right. But about this, yeah—she’s spot on.

  “Besides, just think about the kissing. I mean that will get you through hard conversations, right? Those lips? Oh my God, have they been on your tits?”

  “And goodbye!” I laugh nervously into the phone and widen my eyes, ignoring her pleading sounds. I hang up mid “oh, come on,” and then set my phone flat on the counter once again. My thumbs are hooked in the band of my jeans and I run them along my midriff as a reminder of the line that somehow got drawn for Jesse. I shiver at the thought of his lips crossing this boundary, and I touch myself over my Zoom Shipping polo shirt, first along my ribs then up to my breasts. I feel foolish, groping myself, but at least we don’t have a camera in here. I laugh out loud as I glance down at my own palms covering my slight B cups. The laughter dies out though when my imagination fills in the fantasy of Jesse’s hands being there instead of mine, of him removing my shirt and my bra, and laying me back on the counter and kissing all of me raw.

  The chimes of the store door do their job. I instantly begin walking around the store as if I was doing anything other than touching myself.

  “Gotta love Sundays,” my mom says, tripping a little on her way into the store, her arms weighed down with bags. I rush to help her, taking the five strung on her left forearm.

  “What’s all this?” The bags are heavy with cans.

  “Food-drive time,” she says. We put boxes out in a few places twice a year, but my mom takes care of collecting every night. Teenagers are assholes, and they steal canned food to do dumb shit like launch items from water-balloon slingshots to see if they’ll splat open on the road.

  Creamed corn is the best, for the record.

  “Last night’s haul was pretty good,” I say, letting the wince of guilt pass through my ribs as I stack the corn on top of the green beans on the back counter. I probably should have helped her collect these.

  “Not bad,” my mom says, emptying the remaining bags.

  We organize together, quietly, because that’s what Sundays are good for around this place—quiet. Only my head hasn’t been very quiet since I met Jesse Barringer. It’s been loud; a shouting kind of loud. Maybe crying out, in fact.

  I practice mouthing the words first. It takes me at least fifteen minutes to settle on how I’m going to bring it up. My mom has moved on to running the take from the register for the week, and she’s gone to the back to drag her favorite office chair out to the counter up front. It’s a little low to fit perfectly, but she likes to keep an eye on things, so she pumps the chair as high as it will go and makes do.

  I rehearse my expression behind her back as she takes her seat, then decide it’s better I just don’t make eye contact with her at all. She’s liable to scare me with her flinch, or worse, that glare she gets when I break out my best sarcasm in response to her list of chores for me.

  No eye contact is best. It’s decided.

  My palms are sweaty. My lips feel numb.

  “I wonder what college Ella would have gone to.”

  I can feel the oxygen leave the space around us. My mom’s movements haven’t stopped, yet every stroke of the pen in her hand and shift of her body is different now. The robot is here. The cold is here.

  The quiet.

  I shift my feet and wait for her to say something…anything!