Free Rush by Eve Silver Page A

people I know and people I barely know, all wanting to find out about how I saved Janice’s sister. I turn my phone off again and drag on a pair of plaid flannels and a ratty sweatshirt, then head down to let Carly in.
    She kicks off her shoes, follows me to the kitchen, and sets the coffees on the counter, right beside the neat line of empty beer bottles. They’re perfectly aligned, labels pointing forward. She stares at them, saying nothing. I stare at them, trying to remember if they were there when I went up to bed last night. They weren’t. Which means Dad polished them off, all seven of them, after I went up.
    He quit smoking as soon as Mom got her diagnosis. He started drinking the day we buried her. Or maybe he drank before that, and I just never noticed. Funny how so much about the way I saw my parents shriveled away right along with my mom.
    Carly opens the fridge and peers inside, then runs her index finger along the tops of the bottles on the door. “Seventeen,” she says after a quick count. The number makes the tension in my shoulders ease. All bottles present and accounted for; Dad didn’t take any beer with him. I touch the rim of each empty bottle on the counter in turn. Dry. So it’s unlikely he drank them this morning. Dad pretends he doesn’t have a problem because he steers clear of hard liquor. And he swears that he’ll never drink and drive. I want to believe him, and it looks as if today I can.
    Leaning one hip against the counter, Carly watches me as I put the empties in the cardboard box under the sink then wipe the counter even though it isn’t dirty. She’s waiting to see if I want to talk about it. I don’t.
    But I do wish I could talk about what happened yesterday; I want to, so badly that the words feel like they’re clogging my throat. I usually tell Carly pretty much everything, and what I don’t tell her, she figures out for herself. Keeping something this big from her feels wrong, but Luka’s warning haunts me, and I don’t dare say a thing. Besides, how could she possibly believe me even if I did tell her? I can barely believe it, and I lived it.
    “What flavor?” I ask, dipping my chin at the coffees.
    “Full-fat double-shot peppermint mocha for me, plain old decaf skinny latte for you.”
    I grab a couple of chocolate Pop-Tarts, keep one for myself and hand the other to Carly.
    “Pop-Tarts?” she asks, one brow shooting up. I remember back to when we were like . . . nine, she practiced that look in the mirror until she felt she had it right. She’s only gotten better at it since then.
    That look makes everything feel like it always does, like nothing’s different. I stare at her for a second, wishing that it were all a dream. A nightmare. A psychotic break. No such luck. Everything’s different.
    I force myself to shrug and take a bite. “Saturday morning breakfast of champions.”
    “Oh, right,” she says. “It’s Saturday.”
    Saturday’s the one day I allow myself to break my healthy-eating rule—a habit that started when Mom was sick. She tried every treatment the doctors suggested, and some they didn’t. Naturopath. Homeopath. Vitamins. Yoga. Dad and I tried a lot of stuff right along with her. For me, the healthy eating stuck. I like being in control of what goes into my body. What I eat, how often I run, how high my grades are, how neat I keep the house—all of that’s my purview, and mine alone.
    That’s one of the things that made the dreams—nightmares—so terrible last night. I couldn’t control what I saw in my sleep and, worse, I couldn’t control what happened in my life yesterday. Thinking about it makes my skin prickle.
    Carly licks foam from her upper lip. “Soooo . . . did you talk to him yet?”
    “Him?” My heart stutters. How does she know about Jackson?
    “Him,” Carly repeats. “Luka.” There’s something weird about the way she says his name, kind of slow and soft.
    “Luka.” I press my lips together.