Free Living with Jackie Chan by Jo Knowles Page B

anything.
    “Who are you buying for, anyway?” I ask as we zigzag through the stream of shoppers. I suddenly have an impression of us going into every single store in the mall and doing exactly what we just did. Picking up a bunch of crap, laughing at it, and putting it back down. Which would actually be fun if we weren’t secret friends and we weren’t, in reality, probably shopping for crap for her boyfriend.
    “Oh . . .” she says. “A bunch of people.”
    “Like?”
    “My mom. And . . .”
    “The boyfriend,” I finish.
    “‘The boyfriend’? C’mon Sam, you know he has a name.”
    “Sorry. I mean,
Britt.
”
And you know my name, too,
I think.
Yet you refuse to use it.
    “Don’t say it like that.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like his name is
shit,
not Britt.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Just c’mon.” She drags me into another store and makes me stand there while she holds up some shirts in front of my chest and squints, as if she’s trying to transfer Britt’s face onto mine. Seriously.
    “Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” I tell her.
    “What?” She puts the shirt back on the rack and blushes. “Fine. Tell me what
you
want for Christmas.”
    I roll my eyes. “Nothing.”
    She punches my arm.
    “Um. Ow?”
    “C’mon. If you could have anything, what would it be?” She smiles at me like she genuinely wants to know. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar hat. And then, even more familiar long brown hair falling out of it.
    My heart stops like I just took a kick to the chest. Then it speeds up so fast I can barely breathe.
    It’s the unmistakable rainbow hat Caleb’s mom gave her last year.
    Ellie.
    She’s two display racks over from us. I swing around fast.
    “Sam?” Stella comes around to face me again.
    I grab the display rack to hold myself up.
    “I have to go,” I say. I rush out of the store and start running.
    “Sam! Wait up!”
    I dart through shoppers and baby strollers. Why are there so many damn baby strollers? I keep running until I find an exit, and then I am heaving into the trash can just outside the door. Heaving and, oh my God, crying. What the hell. I quickly wipe my mouth and face and just breathe and try to calm down. But my heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest.
    Could she have seen me? Was it even her? I can’t breathe.
    No. It couldn’t be. Why would she be at this mall, four hours from home? The hat’s crazy, but obviously not the only one in the world. I’m an idiot.
    “Sam?” Stella runs over to me. “Are you OK? Ick! What happened?”
    She puts her hand on my arm in this caring way that I don’t deserve. I shrug her off.
    “Look,” I say, backing away from her. “I can’t help you. I don’t know what your boyfriend wants for Christmas, OK? And I honestly don’t care. I have to get out of here.”
    “What? But —”
    I start walking away from her.
    “Sam!” She runs after me and grabs my shoulder to swing me around and make me face her.
    When I do, I see it. That look. That same goddamn pathetic look. The
Don’t leave me here
look. The
I need something from you
look. My eyes start watering up again. I swear if I had a knife on me, I would jam it into my jugular.
    “What’s going on?” she asks. “You can tell me. I’m your friend.”
    Really? What kind of friend? The kind that only hangs out with me — will only even be seen with me — when her boyfriend is MIA? What kind of a friend is that?
    “Sam,” she says, because I am too much of a wimp to ask those questions out loud. “Talk to me.”
    I force myself to meet her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes that are boring into me. Trying to see my soul. The real me. I realize hiding who I really am from her is no better than her hiding me from
Britt.
We’re both good at deception.
    “It’s OK,” she says, still studying my face.
    For the first time, it feels like maybe it is.
    I take a deep breath. “You have to stop