Free Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen Page A

difference.”
    â€œWhatever.” Scarlett was never happy with anyone Marion dated; mostly they were men who stared at her uncomfortably as they passed out the door on weekend mornings.
    â€œWell,” I said slowly as Marion finished her left hand and waved it in the air, “I’m sure he’s very nice.”
    â€œHe is,” she said simply, getting up from the table and walking to the stairs, fingers outstretched and wiggling in front of her. “And Scarlett would know it too, if she ever gave anyone a fair chance.”
    We heard her go upstairs, the floor creaking over our heads as she walked down the hall to her room. Scarlett picked up the dirty cotton balls, tossing them out, and collected the polish and the remover, putting them back in the basket by the bathroom where they belonged.
    â€œI’ve given lots of people chances,” she said suddenly, as if Marion was still in the room to hear her. “But there’s only so much faith you can have in people.”
    We sat in her bedroom and watched as Steve arrived, in his Hyundai hatchback, with flowers. He didn’t look much like a warrior or an impaler as he walked Marion to the car, holding her door open and shutting it neatly behind her. Scarlett didn’t look as they drove off, turning her back on the window, but I pressed my palm against the glass, waving back at Marion as they pulled away.
    When I went home later, my mother was in the kitchen reading the paper. “Hi there,” she said. “How was school?”
    â€œPine.” I stood in the open kitchen doorway, my eyes on the stairs.
    â€œHow was that math test? Think you did okay?”
    â€œSure,” I said. “I guess.”
    â€œWell, the Vaughns are coming over tonight for a movie, if you want to hang around. They haven’t seen you in a while.”
    Noah Vaughn was in eleventh grade and he still spent his Friday nights watching movies with his parents and mine. I couldn’t believe he’d ever been my boyfriend. “I’m going over to Scarlett’s.”
    â€œOh.” She was nodding. “Okay. What are you two doing?”
    I thought of Macon, of that clock in the gym, of the momentous day I’d had, and held back everything. “Nothing much. Just hanging out. I think we’re going out for pizza.”
    A pause. Then, “Well, be in by eleven. And don’t forget you’re mowing the lawn tomorrow. Right?”
    My mother, deep into writing a book about teens and responsibility, had decided I needed to do more chores around the house. It enhances the sense of family, she’d said to me. We’re all working toward a common goal.
    â€œThe lawn,” I said. “Right.”
    I was halfway up the stairs when she said, “Halley? If you and Scarlett get bored, come on over. The more the merrier.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, and I thought again how she always had to have her hands in whatever I did, keeping me with her or herself, somehow, with me, even when I fought hard against it. If I’d told her about Macon, I could hear her voice already, asking questions: Whose party was it? Would the parents be there? Would there be drinking? I imagined her calling the house, demanding to speak to the parents like she had at the first boy-girl party I’d ever gone to. I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I’d slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm’s length, behind a closed door, miles away.
    Â 
    Scarlett and I pulled up at the party at nine-thirty, which we figured was fashionably late since there were already lines of cars up and down the street, parked haphazardly on the curbs and against mailboxes. It was Ginny Tabor’s house, Ginny Tabor’s party, and the first thing we saw when we walked up the driveway was Ginny Tabor, already drunk and sitting on the back of her mother’s BMW with a wine