When I get to the front door, my mother yanks it open before I can even dig my key out of my backpack. She was obviously watching the front of the house, waiting for me to return. She is wearing a pair of gray yoga pants, and her graying hair has come partially unraveled from her ponytail.
“How was school?” she asks me before I can even manage to step into the house.
“Great,” I say. “It was the best day of school ever.”
“Don’t be a smart aleck.”
I dump my backpack on the floor by the front door, even though I should probably bring it up to my room since I have homework. Both Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Bennett managed to assign homework today. But at least I’m looking forward to the English assignment. He wants us to write about our summer, but in poem form.
Mom wrings her hands together, hovering over me even though she knows I hate it when she does that. “Did you make any friends?”
I groan. “No.”
“What about Hudson?”
I just shake my head.
“I don’t understand what happened between the two of you.” She tugs at her yoga pants, which look too tight. “He’s such a nice boy. You used to be inseparable.”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to call his mother?”
I groan again. I definitely do not want her calling Mrs. Jankowski, who at least speaks slightly better English than her husband but is no less strange. Besides, I know exactly why Hudson isn’t speaking to me. And my mom can never, ever find out.
“It’s fine,” I say. “He’s busy all the time with football anyway.”
Thankfully, she lets it go, which is a major achievement. A few years ago, my mom and I had an easy relationship, whereas my dad was a loose cannon—always angry when he’d been drinking and ready to explode over the tiniest thing. And now my dad is gone, and my mom has turned into this hovering worried mother. But at least I don’t think she’s drinking like he did.
No, I know she’s not. She would never.
Mom arches an eyebrow. “Was Mr. Tuttle there?”
“No.” I drop my eyes. “He got… I mean, he was fired or quit or something. But he’s gone.”
“Oh.”
I can tell my mother is relieved. Like a lot of people, she never quite believed me when I told her nothing happened between me and my math teacher. Maybe because my story kept changing just enough to make people wonder.
She looks like she wants to ask me about it again, and if she does, I swear to God, I’m going to start screaming. I don’t want to talk about it again. I told her the truth. I told the principal the truth. And I told the police everything there was to tell.
Well, not everything.
I mean, I’m not a complete idiot.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Nine
EVE
THE ALARM IS GOING off in the shoe store. It’s blaring throughout the entire store, and it’s hard to believe that everyone in the mall can’t hear it.
Oh God, I never should’ve taken those shoes. What was I thinking? I already have enough shoes. I just bought a pair only two weeks ago. I got greedy. But I just wanted them so badly…
What is wrong with me? I’m sick. Nate is right—I have a problem.
There’s a security guard jogging toward the store. I don’t know what the policy is on prosecution of shoplifters, but this is not good. I don’t know how it will look for my job if I have a shoplifting charge against me. I could get fired.
What is Nate going to say about all this? He’s going to be so disappointed in me. I can’t even face him after all this.
I clutch my purse to my chest, the blood rushing in my ears. The clerk is also hurrying toward the exit, and it only vaguely registers that she pushes past me without giving me a second look.
That’s when something occurs to me. I have not yet gone through the exit. The only one who went through is the old woman who just bought a pair of shoes.
“I’m so sorry!” the clerk cries. “I totally forgot to take off the security strip on your shoes!” She flashes the security guard an apologetic look. “This was my bad. She paid for those shoes.”
The clerk leads the nonplussed elderly woman back to the cash register to disarm the security strip, while I stand in the corner of the store, trembling down to my core. I hadn’t realized there was a security strip in the shoes. If I had gone through the exit first, the alarm would have gone off, and the security guard would have found the stolen shoes in my purse.
I dodged a major bullet.