Free The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe

don’t know how much bread and rolls and cookies are going to help anyone, but even if they just put a smile on the patients’ faces and distract them for a minute, I guess the work was worth it.
    Dad seemed impressed, but he’s probably less happy now that he’s carried all the bags we filled to work. His fault for insisting on leaving the car with us in case there’s an emergency.
    I made the last few calls this morning: sick, angry, angry, really sick, and no answer. After that I couldn’t take another moment of being stuck in my room. I went downstairs and saw Mom standing by the living room window, looking out at the street.
    There was no one there. She was just gazing at the outside, like animals do at the zoo, remembering when they had a whole world that wasn’t caged in. It made my heart ache.
    “Let’s go to the park,” I said. “The ferrets could use a walk.”
    I expected her to argue, but she smiled.
    “That’s a good idea,” she said. “We’ve got to give ourselves a moment to stop being scared every now and then. It can’t be healthy staying cooped up inside all day. Go see if Drew wants to come. I’m going to call your uncle.”
    No one answered when I knocked on Drew’s bedroom door, so I peeked inside. His computer and his unmade bed and his sci-fi movie posters were all there, but he wasn’t. He’s been sneaking out for an hour or two most days. I wonder where he’s going? Just to hang out with friends, to prove the virus isn’t going to run his life? I hope he’s remembering his mask, at least.
    I put the leashes on Mowat and Fossey more slowly than I needed to, because I could hear Mom’s voice carrying up the stairs. The quarantine’s really pissed Uncle Emmett off, no surprise, and he’s been taking his frustration out on Mom. I didn’t come downstairs until she’d gotten off the phone, and by then she looked calm enough.
    “We’ll take Meredith along,” she said. “It’ll be good for her too.”
    “Drew wasn’t interested,” I told her.
    We drove the two blocks to Uncle Emmett’s house, and then the five blocks to the park. Mom’s eyes kept flickering back and forth when we left the car, as if she expected some maniac to come leaping from the shrubbery. But all we saw were a few fall birds hopping through the trees. After a couple minutes she relaxed. I pulled down my face mask so I could taste the fresh air, and she didn’t say anything.
    “Can I take one of them?” Meredith asked, practically bouncing, and I handed over Mowat’s leash. She raced with him to a patch of tall grass, giggling. She must have been dying to get out.
    Fossey decided she wanted to take a dip in the pond, so I let her tug me over to the edge. She slipped in and then scurried back out, shaking herself with her fur all puffed up. I glanced around to call Meredith over, and then I saw we weren’t the only people in the park after all.
    About thirty feet off, through the trees, a group of guys was standing around, a couple of them passing a bottle of beer back and forth. None of them had masks. I recognized most of them from school—Quentin was there, and the guy with the tawny hair that Mackenzie pointed out when we were here last time. Gav. The fighting club. I couldn’t remember exactly who’d been with him before, but I was pretty sure it was the same group.
    Right then, Quentin turned my way. His expression didn’t change, but he said something to the others, and a few more of the guys looked over. My fingers tensed on the leash. They were being really careless about the virus. If just one of them had been exposed, he could pass it on so easily. But I had my mask, and maybe they’d heard things we hadn’t found out through Dad.
    While I was debating whether to go talk to them, Fossey managed to tangle her leash around the branches of this brambly bush. I had to crouch down to work it loose. By the time I’d gotten her free, the guy with the tawny hair was walking toward me.
    I