Page 56 of Places We've Never Been

“Austin could let a thousand dogs out of the backyard and my dad would probably praise him for it.”

“Where would he get a thousand dogs?” I asked.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” He obviously wasn’t in the mood for my jokes and I understood why. His shoulders were tense and his jaw was clenched. “I’m sorry.”

He gave me a quick hug and said, “I’ll meet you at your house later.”

“Or you could come now. You’ll feel better. I will sing you a song about mean dads.”

He smiled a little. “Fine, but no to the song.”

“He’s a loser, Skyler, and he never listens.” I sang to the tune of “Loser” by Beck.

He put his hands over his ears. “Seriously, Norah, stop ruining good songs.”

“You know you love it.”

He laughed, that carefree, comfortable laugh.

“Norah!”

My head snapped up and my brother stood there, hair wet from a shower.

“Hi, what?” My heart was pounding with the memory. The memory of how close we used to be, of how he would share everything with me.

“Jeez, where does your brain travel to?”

“Sorry.”

“Bathroom is free.”

“Thanks.” I got up, tucked the notebook away, and grabbed my toiletries.

“Hey, Nor?” Ezra asked before I made it into the bathroom.

“Yeah?”

“Did you have fun today? We kind of ditched you and I know Paisley didn’t want to do a lot of the rides.”

“I had fun,” I said.

“Is Skyler still being a punk to you?”

“You noticed he’s being a punk?”

“Well, yeah. You two used to spend every waking moment together. And now…”

“And now what?” I asked, curious if Skyler had said something about me when they were hanging out.

“And now it’s like he goes out of his way to avoid you. Did something happen?”

“Time, I guess. I don’t know.” I didn’t want to admit to my brother that Skyler probably thought I was crushing on him.

“And you tried to tell me a couple days ago that the time apart wouldn’t make anything awkward.”

“Apparently I underestimated my ability to make everything awkward.”

“Awkward? You?” He gave me this weird, sad smile and then said, “We’ll all stick together tomorrow.”

Great. He felt sorry for me. I pulled the bathroom door shut behind me and leaned against the counter. The mirror was still steamy from Ezra’s shower. I reached up and pushed on the bottom right corner, releasing the latch and revealing shelves. There was only a bottle of aspirin, sitting alone on the middleshelf.