Free His Best Friend's Baby by Molly O'Keefe

time. He’s been through a lot and he needs space to be comfortable and get to know us.”
    “It’s not like we’re going to get to know each other if I have to stay in the truck all the time.I’m sixteen, Dad. I’m not a kid,” she grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest.
    Really, Dad was getting a little lame in his old age.
    “You wanted to come and I told you that was the deal.”
    “You and Mom act like he’s crazy—like he’d attack me.” Oh, God, that would get her an A in English for sure. “Do you think he’d attack me?”
    “You’ve got more imagination than this whole town put together.” Dad didn’t sound as though that was a good thing.
    “Well, the whole town thinks he’s going to kill all of us in our sleep or something.”
    “You know that’s not true.”
    “Clara at the grocery store said that Jesse had been trying to kill Mitch Adams since they were kids. It just took him a few years to get the job done. But Rita says that’s not true, that it was the other way around.”
    “Why are you talking to Clara and Rita about this?”
    “Everybody is talking about it. Uncle Jesse coming back is, like, the biggest thing since the football team won conference.”
    “What else is everyone saying?”
    “That Jesse killed Mitch and three other guys.”
    “It was an accident.”
    “I also heard that he went to jail for beating a kid up to get his tennis shoes in high school. I heard he beat the kid so bad he had to have total reconstructive surgery. “
    “That’s completely exaggerated.”
    “I heard he got three girls pregnant.”
    Dad finally turned to her, furious. “That’s not true!”
    “I’m just telling you what I hear.” Amanda held up her hands like the innocent messenger she was.
    “Jesse was a tough kid in high school and he did some things that I’m sure he regrets. But he’s not half as bad as what—”
    “Then why can’t I meet him?”
    Her father swallowed. She knew what he would say. Something lame about her being too young and Jesse being too unpredictable and how he’d hurt Mom for years and how Dad didn’t want Amanda’s feelings to get hurt.
    “He will meet you when he’s ready. When he’s…better. Okay?”
    Amanda didn’t want to wait until Jesse was better. She wanted to know him now. She wanted to find out if he really did all those things. If he was as bad as people said he was.
    Well, that was part of it.
    The other part of it had to do with knowing exactly how it felt to be tired, cold and flea-bitten.
    “Amanda?” They were stopped at a light and Dad was staring at her in that old way of his. It had been four years since she ran away, four years since she finally told the truth and Dad still sometimes looked at her as though he didn’t know what she was going to do next.
    “I’m serious. Leave Jesse alone until your mom or I say it’s okay. Don’t go over there by yourself.”
    “Fine.” She huffed like she was angry with this decision of his.
    But Thursday after school, she’d skip cross-country practice and do some investigative journalism.
    She turned her head so Dad couldn’t see her grin. What if Jesse did pull a gun on her? She felt giddy with possibility.
    This story was going to be awesome!

CHAPTER SIX
    T HURSDAY MORNING , the college application papers were propped up against the plate sitting in what had quickly become “her spot.”
    Julia was happy to have a spot. Any spot. At anyone’s table. But those application forms sent a jittery blast of anxiety right through her. She didn’t want to have to disappoint Agnes so soon, but college wasn’t in the cards for her.
    “I hope you don’t mind,” Agnes said, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “I just thought—” She shrugged. “I just want to help.”
    She looked so nervous, so unsure of herself, standing there in the sunlight, that Julia smiled to put her at ease. Agnes took that as the invitation she needed.
    “You can get your degree in just