Page 25 of Hello Doctor

I clenched my jaw together. “What the heck, Maya? Are we really doing this again?”

“Doing what?” she snapped back.

“Doing the thing where you pretend you’re not a great kid with a big heart who makes good choices and doesn’t throw away food I worked really freaking hard on.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Make it better next time.”

“You make it yourself,” I replied, stepping outside to cool off before I could go off on her. I thought we were making so much progress, but maybe I was kidding myself. Was our whole summer really going to be like this?

I got out my phone to call my mom and she answered after a few rings.

“What’s up, honey?” she asked.

I let out a groan, filling her in on the whole thing.

“That poor girl,” Mom said.

“Poor her?” I demanded. I looked into the house to see she was already watching TV with a bag of chips in her lap. “Poor me! I don’t know how to do this!”

Mom let out a soft laugh, making me give an exasperated laugh too.

“Help me,” I whined.

I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “You got too close to her, and she’s afraid you’ll leave, so she pushed back. She’s probably afraid and worried and really stinking angry at all that’s happened. She needs to find a way to get her anger out. Throw something, hit something. Anything to move that rage out of her body.”

I nodded. “I think I have an idea.”

“That’s my girl.”

14

Liv

When I got off the phone with my mom, I called Hayes.

A short conversation later, I walked back into the house, grabbed the remote from the coffee table, and turned off the TV.

“Hey!” Maya said. “I was watching that!”

“Not anymore. Get in the truck.”

She let out a loud groan, but I waited until she got up and followed her out to my pickup. When we were inside and buckled in, she asked, “Where are we going now?”

“You’ll see,” I said.

We drove the rest of the way to Cottonwood Falls and stopped at Hayes’s Body Shop on the outskirts of town. It was a big tin building with a small shop of front and a massive lot of vehicles used for parts next door.

“What are we doing here,” Maya asked.

“You’ll find out in a little bit. Come on.”

We got out of the truck and started walking toward the shop. Hayes came out of the garage, wiping his oil stained hands on a rag. “If it isn’t my two favorite girls.”

Maya went to him, giving him a side hug, despite all the grease on his clothes.

“Come with me,” he said.

I followed behind him and Maya, and he walked us through the shop where a few mechanics were working on different vehicles. A big fan like the ones from the school gym circulated air through the space, but it was still a bit hotter than it was outside. Sweat was already beading down my neck.

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