Free Untethered by Katie Hayoz Page B

Sam hums along and asks, “Who sings this?”
    “Hey,” I say. “We’ve got to get rid of the beer smell on our breath.” I pull gum out of my purse and hand it to Cassie and Sam.
    Sam raises his T-shirt to his nose. “What about the smoke?”
    “What did you do, when you went to those parties this past summer?” I ask Cassie.
    “ I didn’t do a thing. My parents don’t care what I do.”
    “I wish that were the case for us right now.” I yank the pine tree air freshener from off the rearview mirror and rub the thing all over my clothes. “This is gonna have to do.”
    She lifts one eyebrow. “Pine scent? That’s ... creative. Too bad I don’t keep Febreze in the car like Evan. He had a whole slew of stuff he did after a party. Called it his ‘Smelling Sober’ ritual. I told you that.”
    Evan. One of the guys she’d dated over the summer. “No you didn’t.”
    She just shrugs. “Maybe I don’t tell you everything.”
    I look at her French manicured fingernails on the steering wheel, then down at my own unpainted ones, cut short. I think of tonight’s conversation at the party and of all the times I’ve left my own body. Yeah. Well, maybe I won’t tell you everything, either.
     
    When we pull up to Dad’s apartment building, Mom’s car is parked outside.
    “Oh, no. We’re dead.” Sam slides further into the back seat, deflating like the marshmallow Bryce offered Ashley earlier.
    “Come on.” Both of us get out and wait for Cassie to speed off before walking the twenty steps to the apartment building. It’s a decent complex: sandy brick squares with large picture windows and wrought iron rails on the balconies. Despite Dad’s move seeming sudden to me, I know he was actually looking for a place for a while. To get away from her. From me. From us. Maybe from everything.
    When we walk into his apartment, they’re arguing. Of course.
    “—in your care. How could you let them go?” This from my mother who looks on the verge of tears. She always looks on the verge of tears lately.
    “I’m still their father and I—” Dad sees us and put a cheesy smile on his face like we’re three years old and can’t understand what’s happening. “Hello! I see you two are on time, just like we said.” Here he gives an ‘I told you so’ look to my mother. But her eyes are probably too full of tears to see it.
    Mom turns to us and throws up her arms. “I was worried sick about you! Going out so late! You two never go out. Where were you?”
    That’s it. We’re toast.
    But for once I’m glad for the tension between the two of them. My dad stands up straighter and says in a steely voice, “Nicole, they’re my responsibility on the weekend.”
    Mom looks from him to us. She drops it for now.
    “Why’re you here?” I ask.
    She pulls an army green backpack off of a folding chair Dad has in the living room. “Sam, you forgot this. I figured you’d need it to do your homework.”
    Sam shrugs. “I finished it all; Mrs. Leonard wasn’t there fifth hour and then I had study hall.”
    Mom looks almost crushed. “Well, then.” She puts the backpack on the chair again, but doesn’t make a move to go.
    When we’d walked in, the anger in the room was palpable. Now, though, it’s dissipated into something else. Dad shuffles his feet and sighs. “Did you want to stay for a drink? Not long. Just until the kids are ready for bed.”
    Mom pretends to hesitate, but she’s not fooling anyone. Least of all Dad. “I suppose I could.”
    Dad still doesn’t have a table, just the bar with stools. Mom gets on a stool, her legs dangling. “I’ll have tea, please Michael.”
    “No tea here.”
    “All right, then. Fizzy water?”
    Dad’s lips get tight and a muscle in his neck pulses. “There’s coffee, beer, Coke, and milk.”
    Mom is lactose intolerant. She doesn’t do coffee. Or Coke. I wait for her to ask for tap water but she surprises me and shrugs. “Fine. Give me a beer.”
    While Dad’s