Free Bone Deep by Brooklyn Skye

and noticing how it’s improved since she started physical therapy and thinking, like me, that with a few more months she may be walking normal again.
    He raises his eyebrow. “Like old times, yeah?”
    I was planning to tell him sorry for not being honest with him about the article and the concert, but the truth is he has no idea what it’s like to be the star lead in The Fucked-up World of Krister Ledoux, and I’m not all that sorry so I shrug and we start for class. “She wants to get back together again,” I tell him and he goes, “I think you should,” to which I say, “Not gonna happen,” and he says, “Why not? She’s hot.” And that’s when I stop, look him in the eye.
    Because it’s like that one time we were throwing a football in your house and knocked over your mom’s horse statue and even though we superglued it all back together, it didn’t exactly fit because a little piece got lost. The entire shape changed. And like that statue, Jess and I don’t fit together anymore, too many little pieces have been lost. Plus, asshat, did you forget I almost killed her? And she, at the very least, deserves the right to not worry every time she gets in the car with someone if he’s going to space out and run a stop sign. And don’t even get me started on the whole like-father-like-son bullshit. At least I wasn’t texting and driving.
    “Not. Gonna. Happen,” I say.
    He stares at me blankly. “You’re a dumbass.”
    “Better than a smartass.”
    “There’s a test in statistics today. You may want to show up.”
     
    ~*~
    I rush through the test, grab my folder, and slip out of the room once I’m finished, Agudelo eyeing me from behind his trying-to-be-cool-but-look-like-a-wad black-framed glasses.
    The train station is over ly crowded today and Cam’s not here. I sit on the bench for a few minutes, but don’t stay long and when I get home another envelope is waiting for me in the mailbox.
     
    I shall make dust of history.
    Dust of dust.
     
    Meaning what, exactly?
    Inside, Wrenn’s in the kitchen, sitting at the wheel she set up right in the middle of the floor. The wheel’s not spinning, but she’s already got the clay centered and shaped like an urn. A lighter draws up to the end of the joint dangling from her mouth. A little dearth in brain cells to help decipher the cryptic message?
    I’ll take what I can get.
    “Hey,” I say, holding up the square of paper. “Got a sec?”
    She pulls in a humungous lungful of smoke then holds up her finger to tell me to wait until her face turns a darker shade of red and she sighs out a veil of smoke. “Just who I wanted to see. I need to talk to you about your dad.”
    Hmm, tempting, but no thanks. “Can it wait?”
    “Not really.” She sets the burning joint in an ashtray and spins her chair to face me. For a minute, we stare at each other without talking, her tongue running against her dry, cotton-mouthed teeth and me wondering when she’ll just blurt out whatever she needs to say. Fractured beams of sunlight stab through the window, into the urn-shaped figure of clay like skinny bolts of lightning , and I think how the last time I saw lightning was also the last time I saw my dad. A late summer storm, moisture-thick air, and a dad smiling—genuinely smiling—as he sat across a bench from me with a guard standing a few feet away, close enough to see my eyes roll ever so slightly when the one in the gray jumpsuit breathed out the words, I miss you, buddy .
    Wrenn licks her lips. “You understand the purpose of this appeal case, right?”
    “Sur e. Is that all? You just double-checking?” I start for my room, letter still folded in my hand.
    “K, wait.”
    Damn.
    “ Jamon wants you to testify.” Her words hold no sympathy. No worry. No fear that it might send me completely over the edge. I close my eyes. Breathe.
    “I’m not a witness.” My voice stays even. I am in control. “The last time I was at work with Dad was almost ten