Free The Truth about Us by Janet Gurtler Page B

nice,” Wilf says when we’re out of earshot. It takes a while. He moves pretty slowly.
    â€œWhat?” I ask, watching a younger man leaving the building. He’s carrying a construction hat under his arm and has on steel-toed boots.
    â€œRemembering his name.”
    I lift a shoulder. “I’m good with names. Hey. Does that guy work?” I ask.
    â€œLots of people who come to New Beginnings work,” he tells me.
    â€œSo why are they here then?” I wondered the same thing about Flynn’s mom.
    â€œYou’ve haven’t seen much of this world, have you, kiddo?” he asks.
    â€œI’ve seen enough,” I snap.
    He doesn’t say anything, but his expression changes. I feel kind of bad, but he doesn’t know me. He’s making as many assumptions about me as he thinks I’m making about others.
    â€œHow come you volunteer?” I ask.
    â€œNot because my dad makes me, that’s for sure,” he grumbles. And then he looks over at me. “If not us, then who?”
    I think about that as we walk the rest of the way in silence, and when we reach the bus stop, he sits on the bench as soon as he reaches it.
    â€œYou shouldn’t be walking me all the way here,” I tell him. “You’re tired.”
    He frowns at me. “You think I’m too old?”
    â€œWell, let’s say in your day, I think rainbows were in black and white.”
    He chuckles. “I admit I’m at the age where I pick my cereal for the fiber content, but you’re still at the age where you pick your cereal for the toys.”
    â€œFunny,” I tell him. “As in not funny at all.”
    â€œYou have sass,” he says. “And I think you use sarcasm to keep people from looking too deep. You remind me of someone I used to know. In spite of yourself, I’ve decided to like you.”
    I turn my head and pretend to be watching for a bus so he doesn’t see that his comment pleases me. “How do you know I’m not just mean?” I ask.
    â€œBecause your remember people’s names.”
    A bus is pulling toward us, and he tells me it’s the right one. He gives me instructions on transferring to Tuxedo as the door opens. “You have change?” he asks.
    â€œI’m a spoiled rich girl, remember?”
    â€œWe all have burdens to overcome,” he says.
    The door closes behind me, but I see him watching me from the bench, and he’s smiling.
    â€¢ • •
    Over the next while, Flynn brings Kyle in for lunch almost every day. He usually drops in before the lunch service to help out, and Kyle hangs out with me while Flynn works. My new best friends are a five-year-boy and a grouchy seventy-five-year-old man, and Flynn, well, I’m still figuring out what he is to me. The days he doesn’t show up, my shift goes by a lot slower.
    The air between us is easier now, almost like friends. New friends but real. Not the fake, party kind of friends I’ve chosen to be around since Penny and I stopped hanging out. And not the easy friendship of a five-year-old boy or my love/hate relationship with Wilf.
    I suspect I may have a crush on Flynn but try not to think about it too much. It’s not only because he’s super easy on the eyes, but because when we talk, and he asks questions, I feel like he listens to the answers. And sees who I am. And thinks that maybe I’m not that bad after all.
    I’m getting to know the other volunteers at the shelter. Most of them are older than me, way older, but they mostly treat me like an equal, not a bratty kid, and they don’t question my reasons for being there, so I don’t mind. I hear bits and pieces about why they work there. “We all have sins to atone for,” Stella told me one day when she was in a rare talkative mood. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one.
    I recognize most of the regulars now too. They’re polite and