Page 73 of Fade into You
She barely even looks at me as she maneuvers through the student parking lot and out onto the drive that leads past the back doors and the faculty lot. It’s not until we reach the stoplightonto the main road that she lets out a long exhale, like she’d been holding her breath all day. When it changes to green, she turns, and waits two blocks before she finally rests her arm on the console and lets me take her hand. It’s a strange feeling to know she’s only willing to touch me like this now because no one can see. But then I interlace my fingers with hers, and when she looks over at me and smiles, I decide I don’t really mind that much.
“So, you have to gorighthome? You’re sure?”
“Unfortunately, yeah,” I tell her. “The twins are usually at Daniel’s parents’ house until my mom gets out of work, but they couldn’t watch them today for some reason. I don’t know. I promised I’d come right home so he could leave for work.”
“What about Olivia? She can’t do it?”
“Oh please, Liv does not babysit. Besides, she can’t miss”—I pause to try to get the Valley girl voice right—“cheer practice!I mean,as if !”
“Oh no,” she laughs. “God forbid!”
“I love when you laugh like that.” I lean my head back on the seat to watch her.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, like a sweet little giggle.”
“Sweet?Giggle?” she repeats. “God, what are you doing to me, Bird?”
Now I giggle—at the idea that I might bedoingsomething to her, especially if it’s anything like what she’s doing to me.
We get to my house too soon. I keep my hand on top of hers as she shifts the gear into park in my driveway. “Well, you wanna call me later?” she asks.
“Hey, what if you stay for a little while? I mean, we’ll still be babysitting, but they’ll take a nap at some point, and no one will be home until at least six.”
“Umm.” She squints at my house and holds her breath. “I don’t know.”
“I really, really,reallydon’t want you to leave, so please say yes?”
“No Olivia?” she double-checks.
“No Olivia,” I confirm. “And no parental figures. Just us and two toddlers.”
“Really, you want me to stay?”
I nod emphatically, and she starts smiling slowly. I unbuckle my seat belt, then reach over the console to unbuckle hers. She does that sweet little giggle again. I turn the key in the ignition to off and dangle her massive, endless chain of key chains in the space between us.
She smirks and gives me the side-eye as she takes them from me. “You’re dangerous, you know that?”
Inside, my house is chaotic as usual. Toys everywhere. TV on, volume blasting. Ava is sitting in the playpen in the middle of the living room, chewing on the remote control. And Aimee is standing up, dumping cereal all over the couch, because, being the bigger of the two, she just recently learned how to climb out of the playpen.
“Daniel?” I call out. “I’m home.”
I watch Jessa take it all in, but I can’t tell from her neutral expression if she’s horrified or if she’s seen worse or just doesn’t care. Kayla’s never come out and said it, but I know she doesn’t like being here—she’s only stayed over at my house a handful oftimes in all our years of friendship, compared to the literally hundreds of times I’ve slept over at hers.
Daniel rushes in from the hallway, discombobulated, as always. “Birdie, hi, how was your day? Thank you for getting home so fast. Hey, have you seen my wallet anywhere?”
“Daniel, this is Jessa,” I say, since he has yet to even look at me or notice the fact that someone else is here.
He looks up from the computer desk, where he’s been rifling through stacks of old mail and random papers piled in no particular order. “Oh, hello,” he says, smiling. “Nice to meet you, Jessie.”
She returns his “Nice to meet you,” but doesn’t mention him getting her name wrong.
“It’s Jessa,” I tell him.
“Oh, Jess-ah,” he repeats, emphasis on theA. “Sorry.”
“Uh, is that your wallet?” Jessa says, and we both look to where she’s pointing. At Aimee on the floor, no longer sprinkling Cheerios everywhere, but now unfolding Daniel’s wallet like it’s a book she’s trying to read and shaking it so that cash and credit cards and receipts are being flung out everywhere.
