Free Fault Lines by Brenda Ortega Page B

soul?” I said.
    He slammed the door in my face but then flung it open again. “Oh, and lose Todd Gurganus. Trust me, he’s not your BFF.”
    I walked away. “Save it for someone who cares.”
    We must’ve torn a page from Mom and Dad’s book, because we went from screaming at each other to ignoring each other’s existence completely – with the smoldering silence destroying as much as the shouting.
    The only good thing to happen that week was watching Taylor drop out of drama club. She didn’t get a part in A Thousand Cranes , and she made a big dramatic scene of announcing she didn’t want to work offstage. Best news ever.
    The less great news: I got the Grandmother part, and my ex-bestie Maddy Miskowski got Sadako. That meant we’d be spending lots of time together in rehearsals, and we’d even be forced to hold hands at one point during the play.
    Plus Ricky York got his little speaking part, and he didn’t improve at all during lunchtime read-throughs.
    At the end of the week, Dad had scheduled our first “visit” with him for all day Saturday and part of Sunday. Mike wasn’t going – had some football excuse – so it was just me and Bobby.
    It all made me prime to go after Creeper. Todd and Derek and me planned it out for Friday night. We all did it that first time when he wasn’t home, with just soap and eggs, but I made sure to get all my aggression out on those windows so they were completely covered.
    The next morning Mom backed out of the driveway real slow, watching Creeper on a ladder with a hose and bucket cleaning up the dried gunk.
    “Someone vandalized Mr. Reiber’s house,” Mom said as she turned the car into the road and shifted into drive. “How terrible.”
    She didn’t say anything else for the ten-minute drive to Grandma’s. She stared out the windshield with a glazed auto-pilot look.
    Grandma and Dad acted happy when Mom dropped us off. Grandma’s apartment door flew open and they came out all smiles like they hadn’t seen us in ten years and we’d just crossed the ocean in a row boat to get there.
    I plopped on the couch and flicked on the TV. I could hear Bobby in the kitchen, telling Dad about school, all excited about the two of them making lunch together.
    Grandma picked our coats off the floor and held them over her arms, staring at me. I ignored her. I didn’t want to talk. Even she couldn’t make everything OK now.
    When she opened her mouth, I jumped in first. “I can hang those up. I’m sorry we left them on the floor.”
    She dropped them on a chair. “I’m not worried about the coats, Sweetheart.” She sat down on the couch and took the TV remote from my lap. “Do you mind?” she asked, holding it up in front of me.
    “I guess not,” I said, but I kept staring at the TV even after it went black.
    “I’m worried about you .”
    She stroked my hair, but I felt like pulling away and shutting myself up in my bedroom – if I had one there.
    “You’ve been dealing with so much lately,” she said. “It’s fine if you’re not ready to talk about it, but I’m here to tell you that I’m ready whenever you are.
    “No one expects this to be easy,” she said. “I just want you to know that I’m aware how difficult it is. Not only the divorce, but moving, these visits, Justine’s dad, losing Barney.”
    I flinched when she said Barney’s name. She was quiet for a moment. Then she tried a different route to get me talking. “It doesn’t seem fair to lose such a good friend in Barney, right when you need him the most.”
    I give her credit; she was good, but I wasn’t going to spill. “Mmm,” I grunted, trying to act bored with the whole conversation.
    She must have seen she was getting nowhere, because she switched gears again. “There’s something I think we need to do.” She slapped both hands on her knees and stood up. “Come with me.”
    I didn’t want to, but my legs got up and followed her into the dining room where she sat down at the