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I wanted to ask him all sorts of things, silly and serious, but my brain was having none of it. The T. Rex had stomped it to pieces, or the pot had fogged it like a bug bomb, either way everything boiled down to what I really needed to know: “Are you staying this time?”

“Yeah. I don’t think you can get rid of me now.”

I smiled simply at him and for one second he—not the pot—chased everything else away. I leaned forward and—was stunned by the headlights of an oncoming car that looked all too familiar.

“That’s my mom!” I said, and hurled myself out the Corolla’s passenger side.

CHAPTER 53

There wasn’t any point in trying to run back behind the trailer and dive into bed—I stood in my front yard, frozen, just like a deer.

“Jessica Mary McMullen!” my mother began the moment her car door opened, and its slam could be heard from three states away.

“Mom—” Even if I hadn’t had the pot on board, there was no lie I could tell that’d get me out of this mess.

“I cannot believe you. Twice now, you’ve snuck out—how many times have you snuck out and Allie hasn’t caught you?” She strode across our lawn toward me and her hand rose to slap me.

Darius ran in front of me. “Ms. McMullen—it’s my fault.”

My mother stopped. “You’re that boy,” she said low, recognizing him from prom. “Encourage my daughter to lie to me, will you?”

“My name is Darius.” He stuck his hand out and added, “Ma’am.”

My mother looked at his hand with dead shark eyes. “Son, get back in your car.”

“We weren’t doing anything, Mom—” I tried.

“Get the hell off my property!” She bellowed at Darius, taking out on him the anger that was rightfully mine. Lights turned on up and down the street, and dogs blocks away began to bark. I turned toward him.

“Please, go,” I said, nodding to prove I meant it. He frowned, but slowly backed away, keeping eyes on us both, and I turned toward her and made myself small.

“Mom—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to?—”

“To what? How many times do you think I can skip shifts to check up on you, Jessica?” She watched Darius, waiting for him to get in his car, and then slowly drive off—then she grabbed my arm and yanked it. “Were you with him that night that you didn’t come home? Did you already sleep with him?” she hissed as she hauled me to the front door. She dragged me inside and threw me to the couch. I caught myself before I ate a face-full of cushion.

“Spend the night—what?”

“When you didn’t come home, two weeks ago, with your idiotic concussion story?” She started to pace in front of me. I saw Allie run from the bathroom to her room, a pink pajama’d blur.

“No,” I said, with disgust.

She lunged forward and got into my face and I could taste tonight’s cigarettes and disappointment on her. “You’re lying—because you are a liar, Jessica. Just like your father.”

“What???”

Instead of answering me, she inhaled deeply. “Jesus Christ—is that weed?” She grabbed my chin and stared into my eyes, nostrils flaring.

I jerked my head back. “So? You smell like Jim Beam and I still manage to love you!”

She looked stunned, like I had hit her. “I always love you, Jessica,” she said, enunciating each word.

I pushed forward, toward her. “Do you? How’m I supposed to tell? When I’m making dinner, or when I’m going to the grocery store, or when I’m baby-sitting Allie and teaching her how to read, or when I’m some-the-fuck-how making A’s, or when I’m going to work and giving you half my pay?”

“I’m doing the best I can! Sometimes that’s all you can do!” she shouted at the top of her lungs at me. I sat there, clinging to the edge of the couch, panting with emotion.

“I know, Momma. But can’t you ever believe that that’s what I’m trying to do, too?”

She reared up slowly, like a dragon readying for an epic blast, and then a blanket of chill fell around us both, emanating from her heart.