“Out,” I roared, feeling my lungs quaking in my chest as I brought down the roof.
She ran out of my house like a timid mouse. I watched her from my spot at the threshold, panting like I’d just run a ten-mile course. She jogged all the way to the top of the street, then took a right turn, toward the only bus station in this ghost town.
I slammed the door, throwing a punch from hell to the wall beside me.
Maybe it was for the best that everything with Grace blew up to the sky.
She was scarred.
But me? I was screwed.
Grace
Easton gave me a ride back after West kicked me out, since I’d walked to West’s place.
He was trying to talk about football and college the entire time, but all I did was move my mouth over my flame ring, making wishes, like Grandma Savvy had taught me when I was stressed.
The worst part was I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong. I’d popped in to drop West’s wallet off and warn him that Karlie knew we were at the food truck the night before. I’d lied to my best friend to keep both our butts out of trouble.
I figured his mother dropped in unannounced, since he hadn’t mentioned it, and also because he looked like he was more than happy to fling himself off a cliff. I tried to make it as painless as possible, answering all of Caroline St. Claire’s questions. I even tried not to make a big fuss out of the ball cap incident, even though I could feel my anxiety sucking the air out of me, sinking its lethal teeth to the soft side of my throat.
Was it my scar that embarrassed him?
Was it my general Grace-ness? The broken ring and the cap and the long sleeves? My strangeness stuck out in Sheridan, Texas like a stripper in a nunnery.
Or was West simply in one of his dangerous moods, and I was just one of his many casualties?
Whatever it was, dwelling on it wasn’t going to give me any answers. West St. Claire didn’t deserve my sympathy, and that was that.
Easton killed the engine when we reached the truck, turning his face to me. “Westie likes you.”
“He’s got a weird way of showing it,” I managed to mutter, staring straight ahead.
“He does,” Easton agreed easily. “It’s uncharted territory for him. He either hates people or is indifferent to them. You confuse the heck out of him.”
“He confuses the heck out of me,” I retorted.
“You know what we need to do?”
“Kill him with fire?” I muttered.
Braun snickered, tilting his head as he examined me in a different way. Not just a sob story, but a fully formed person.
“Funny, he always goes for the agreeable ones. You’re a little fighter, aren’t you, Shaw?”
I rolled my eyes. I was getting tired of hearing how West always went for girls who were the exact opposite of me. I didn’t need the reminder.
“You were saying?” I prompted. “About us needing to do something?”
“Oh, yeah.” He snapped his fingers. “Press him where it hurts most.”
“And where would that be?” I finally turned to face him, too.
The grin on his face scared me.
“His heart.”
I’d seen West once on campus after the dinner. We’d ignored each other dutifully. He strode past me, remaining committed to his Grace Shaw Doesn’t Exist policy, while I pretended I hadn’t seen him either. He was quiet and curt on our two shifts together. I thought about confronting him, then figured if he was in no hurry to apologize, there was no desperate need for me to work things out either.
So, I gave West the cold shoulder right back.
It wasn’t like I had time to sit and ponder over boy stuff, anyway. The day after the dinner with Caroline St. Claire, the local news channel announced that Sheridan’s one and only bus station was going to close down by the end of the month.
Which meant potential caregivers for Grams would have to get here by car.
Which meant I had to pay them gas money, too.
Which was money I certainly didn’t have.
That was what I’d been focusing on to take my mind off of West: looking for loopholes and ways to hire a caregiver for Grams who’d be able to commute here as cheaply as possible.
I was hunched in front of my laptop in my room when Marla rapped on my door, sticking her face in the gap between the wood and the frame.
“Honey pie? Whatcha doing?”
I clicked on the X button on the website I was surfing—Care4You—and sat back.
She scrunched her nose. “No luck, huh?”
I cracked my knuckles, shaking my head. There was no point in lying. I supposed Marla knew it wasn’t easy to find her replacement, but I wasn’t ready for another Find a Nursing Home lecture.