Free Blue Notes by Carrie Lofty Page A

the minivan’s second row of seats. “Did I do good?” I ask tentatively.
    Mom glares back at me. “You forgot your name again. If he’d had sense enough to call the police, we’d be screwed. You should know better.”
    She pulls a lighter from her back pocket and holds it to Hammie’s foot. It’s amazing how fast fake fur can catch fire, and it’s amazing how calm my mom looks when she tosses Hammie on the ground.
    I’m screaming, crying, begging.
    We’re driving within a minute. Dad has the shakes. He puts the pistol in the glove box, and he and Mom start arguing again. I don’t hear them over the sobs I swallow with my fist in my mouth. My stomach rumbles, and my neck hurts as I pull and pull against the seat belt until I can’t see that little bonfire anymore.
    • • •
    I wake up covered in sweat and my face wet with tears. My stomach rumbles just like it did so long ago. Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to have a regular bad dream. Mine are just sleeping flashbacks.
    I grab my iPhone and tiptoe on unsteady legs to the common room. Luckily, it’s empty. Even the night owls have turned in. I swish the home screen and hesitate only a moment before dialing Clair’s number.
    “Hey,” I say when she picks up.
    “Baby, you okay?”
    “Kinda. I didn’t want to wake you, but . . . I had a nightmare and just needed to hear your voice.”
    “A nightmare?”
    “The one about my bear.”
    I hear her mumble something to John. But there’s no recrimination. No anger. Just the wordless sound of his concern. “We’re here for you, Keeley.”
    I soak in the sweet Southern way she says my name. “I know it’s late. You probably have lots to do in the morning—”
    “No more than you do. I know how hard you work. I’m gonna make a decaf. You tell me everything.”
    I do. I tell her every gruesome detail, although she’s already heard this story a couple times. I curl into myself on the dingy common room couch, wishing for a blanket, cupping the phone to my ear. I’ve stopped crying, but it takes me a long time to get it all out. We hang up an hour later, with a bunch of I love you s and Clair saying softly, “Go get some rest, baby.”
    I try, but it still takes me hours to go back to sleep.

 Ten 
    J anissa and I make time to have breakfast together the next morning—breakfast being Pop-Tarts in bed while we read textbooks and aimlessly watch Lost on Netflix. She’s in her pajamas, per usual. They’re cute little shorts and a T-shirt that reads “Frankie Says Relax.” Her older stepbrother got it for her. There’s twelve years between them, so it’s a way of finding common ground with a sibling so much older—the cornier the better. She has yet to wear her set of matching Magnum, P.I. sweats, but I know she owns them.
    I’m still in my bathrobe with a towel wrapped around my head, because a night at the club meant needing another shower pronto when I dragged myself up from the dead this morning. Between Yamatam’s and that nightmare, I feel prickly and unmoored.
    Of course Janissa had a host of questions after I recounted the triumphs and tragedies of my night. I don’t leave anything out.
    “And he just talked to you like that? All possessive?” I nod at her. “What an ass!”
    “That’s the thing,” I say. “I really can’t tell you why I’m defending him, because he doesn’t deserve it, but it didn’t feel . . . hostile. It felt like I’d been invited to play a game, but I didn’t know the rules.”
    “I wouldn’t defend that.”
    I close my eyes briefly, then towel dry my wet hair to disguise my wandering thoughts—thoughts that have to do with Jude’s buttery rich accent and his lean, capable body. I stand in front of the mirror and spray on some leave-in conditioner. Compared to Janissa’s Scottish heroine red and Adelaide’s Hollywood blonde, I’m feeling pretty plain this morning.
    Maybe I’m just tired, but I suddenly miss Clair and John. Things