Free Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah by Erin Jade Lange Page B

from too much time spent sitting in police stations, waiting for Grandma to bail Mama out and listening to officers bitch about their lack of funding and everything they didn’t have enough of, from GPS tracking devices to SWAT team gear.
    â€œThere’s nothing else here,” York said.
    Boston sighed as he turned onto the interstate entrance ramp. “You know, the longer we wait to deal with this, the worse it could get.”
    â€œJust go to the cabin.”
    â€œYou owe me so big.”
    Then we were on the freeway and flying north.
    The first ten minutes on the road were made of utter silence. Andi twisted her dreads absentmindedly and watched the night fly by the window. In the front seat, Boston kept a laser focus on the road ahead, while York actually dozed off. I briefly wished I’d had some drinks myself, if it would help me sleep through this.
    I clasped my hands together to keep myself from calling Mama. I didn’t want to risk getting my phone confiscated again, but I knew she would start to worry soon. And a worried Mama worried
me
. She was four years clean, but Mama’s sobriety still seemed like it was balancing constantly on the fine point of a knife, ready to tip off in any direction if the wind blew the wrong way. If she thought I was missing, it wouldn’t be a breeze. It would be a hurricane.
    Mama always said I was her reason for living—or, worse, her reason for staying sober. I guess a kid is a pretty damn good reason to get clean, and I should have been glad for that, but it weighed heavy on me whenever she said it. With Grandma gone and Aunt Ellen all but done with the drama, I was the only one left to look out for Mama. And, selfishly, I knew a setback for her would be a setback for me. I was happy back when we first built our little cocoon for two and didn’t invite anyone else in. We were making up for lost time. But now time stretched out before me, full of places and possibility, and I was ready to fly away. But with one wrong move, Mama could pin my wings.
    The quiet in the car was giving me too much time to think—about Mama, about the cop tumbling off the hood of the SUV, about my extremely poor decision to go along on this ride. The silence was making my mind scream, and when I thought I couldn’t take it for one more second, I poked Andi.
    â€œOw. What?” She glared at me, and I made an emphatic gesture that I hoped would convey that she should say something. But judging by the arch of her eyebrow and the sneer on her lip, apparently the only thing my gesturing conveyed was that I might be mentally ill.
    â€œDid you have too much to drink?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t drink.”
    â€œAnd you don’t talk so good, either. What are you pantomiming at me?”
    â€œWell,” Boston said.
    Andi turned her sneer on him. “What?”
    â€œIt’s ‘You don’t talk so well,’ not ‘good.’”
    â€œI know, moron. I was just kid—never mind.” She looked back over at me. “What are you trying to say? Spit it out.”
    I shook my head. “Forget it.”
    But Andi was engaged now. She shifted in her seat to rest her back against the car door and propped her feet up on the bench next to me.
    â€œSo you don’t talk much. You don’t drink. What else don’t you do?”
    I don’t answer questions that are nobody’s business.
    â€œI don’t cry.”
    â€œHa!” Andi crowed. “We’ll see about that. You’ve got crybaby written all over you.”
    â€œI think you have me confused with Boston,” I deflected.
    I felt like an asshole the second the words left my lips. The kid had every reason to cry. Crying was probably downright normal in this situation. I was about to open my mouth to apologize when York whipped around in his seat, not so asleep after all.
    â€œDon’t you talk about my brother, you little