Free Teardrop by Lauren Kate Page A

right?”
    “I’m fine.” He was squeezing too tight. “It wasn’t my fault. This boy ran into me at a stop sign. That’s why I called earlier, but I took care of it. Magda’s at Sweet Pea’s. It’s okay.”
    “You got this guy’s insurance?”
    Until that moment, Eureka had been proud of herself for handling the car without Dad’s lifting a finger to help. She swallowed. “Not exactly.”
    “Eureka.”
    “I tried. He didn’t have any. He said he’d take care of it, though.”
    Watching Dad’s face tense in disappointment, Eureka realized how stupid she’d been. She didn’t even know how to get in touch with Ander, had no idea what his last name was or whether he’d given her his real first name. There was no way he was going to take care of her car.
    Dad ground his teeth the way he did when he was trying to control his temper. “Who was this boy?”
    “He said his name was Ander.” She set the cards down on the entry bench and tried to retreat up the stairs. Her college applications were waiting on her desk. Even though Eureka had decided she wanted to take next year off, Rhoda insisted she apply to UL, where she could get financial aid as a faculty family member. Brooks had also filled out most of an online application to Tulane—his dream school—in Eureka’s name. All Eureka had to do was sign the printed-out last page, which had been glaring at her for weeks. She couldn’t face college. She could barely face her own reflection in the mirror.
    Before she climbed the first step, Dad caught her arm. “Ander who?”
    “He goes to Manor.”
    Dad seemed to blink a bad thought away. “What matters most is you’re okay.”
    Eureka shrugged. He didn’t get it. Today’s accident hadn’t made her any more or less okay than she’d been the day before.She hated that talking to him felt like lying. She used to tell him everything.
    “Don’t worry, Cuttlefish.” The old nickname sounded forced coming from Dad’s lips. Sugar had made it up when Eureka was a baby, but Dad hadn’t called her that in a decade. No one called her Cuttlefish anymore, except for Brooks.
    The doorbell chimed. A tall figure appeared through the frosted glass door.
    “I’ll call the insurance company,” Dad said. “You answer the door.”
    Eureka sighed and unlocked the front door, rattling the knob to get it open. She glanced up at the tall boy on the porch.
    “Hey, Cuttlefish.”
    Noah Brooks—known to everyone outside his family simply as Brooks—had been weaned of his most extreme bayou accent when he started ninth grade in Lafayette. But when he called Eureka by her nickname, it still came out sounding just the way Sugar used to say it: soft and rushed and breezy.
    “Hey, Powder Keg,” she responded automatically, using the boyhood nickname Brooks had earned for the tantrum he’d thrown at his third birthday party. Diana used to say that Eureka and Brooks had been friends since the womb. Brooks’s parents lived next door to Diana’s parents, and when Eureka’s mom was young and newly pregnant, she’d spent a few evenings sitting on log ends on the veranda playing ginwith Brooks’s mom, Aileen, who was two months further along.
    He had a narrow face, a year-round tan, and, recently, a hint of stubble on his chin. His deep brown eyes matched hair that brushed the limits of Evangeline’s dress code. It fell down along his eyebrows when he lifted the hood of his yellow raincoat.
    Eureka noticed a large bandage on Brooks’s forehead, almost obscured by his bangs. “What happened?”
    “Nothing much.” He eyed the scratches on her face, his eyebrows arching at the coincidence. “You?”
    “Same.” She shrugged.
    Kids at Evangeline thought Brooks was mysterious, which had made him the object of several girls’ admiration over the past few years. Everyone who knew him liked him, but Brooks avoided the popular crowd, which deemed it uncool to do anything besides play football. He was friends with the