Free Freefall by Mindi Scott

impossible.
Impossible
.
    “I told you, Ma,” Jared said, still grinning. “I told you I could make this happen.”
    Mom reached up to try to mess with his hair, even though it never budges with all the crap he uses in it. “I never doubted you for a second.”
    She hadn’t, either. Last year Jared got fired from three jobs in a row for (1) showing up late all the time; (2) stealing; and (3) getting high during his break, so Mom ended up having to pay for everything when he was arrested for drunk driving. His attorney fees and court fines pretty much cleaned her out, but she never got on his case too much over it. He promised he’d payher back when he started making money from his music. And now it actually looked like it could happen.
    Except . . .
I
couldn’t go on tour.
    All the people sitting around the bar and the tables were drinking their beers and fixing their gazes on us instead of the three big TVs overhead. Mom clapped her hands and announced, “Hey, everyone! I just found out my babies are taking their music on the road for a band tour next month!”
    There was applause all around, and a few guys even got out of their seats to congratulate us.
    This
was
big news. Huge. Just like Jared had said.
    “You know, that’s really something,” old Bob said, breathing his stale cigarette breath in my face while he yelled to be heard over everyone. “Anita here looks young enough to be your sister, and
you
look young enough to still be in school.”
    Mom had Jared when she was sixteen and me a little more than two years after that. She’s thirty-five, but she can pass for about twenty-five. I’m lucky to only get the little brother thing; Jared sometimes has to put with up with people thinking Mom’s his girlfriend.
    Some other guy shook my hand while his girlfriend or wife patted my arm. Bob kept talking—to me or to himself, I couldn’t tell. “Folks sometimes wait their whole lives for a bunch of nothing to happen, but you kids are off to a jumping start with
something
.”
    I watched Jared under the dim lighting. He was eatingup the attention and smiling like this was one of his coolest moments ever. It should have been like that for me, too, but it wasn’t. My stomach was going crazy and I could hardly breathe.
    “I’ll be right back,” I said.
    Then I moved past everyone to get to the bathroom, and locked myself in.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
    12:23 P.M.
    I was in the fancy three-floor bookstore on the Hill, with a magazine open on my lap and a whole pile of others next to me. But I wasn’t reading; I was hiding out in what was probably the last place anyone would look for me.
    The no-drinking thing was finally feeling decent—I’d gotten some sleep, I was eating normally again, and my head had stopped throbbing and feeling cloudy—but everything else was sucking.
    No one wanted to shut up about the band tour. Jared, Mikey, and Daniel kept talking about how this was by far the best thing ever to come our way. A chance to see more states than just Washington, Oregon, and Idaho! Great exposure! Fun, fun, fun!
    Blah, blah, blah.
    All of us understood that we probably wouldn’t become rich and famous from it—except for Daniel, who was taking
his
optimism to the max. There was a chance we wouldn’t break even, since opening bands aren’t always paid a guaranteed amount. But we all knew it was an amazing opportunity anyway.
    I should have been as excited as hell—I
wanted
to be—but deep down I knew I wasn’t going to be a part of it. Maybe it could have worked if the tour had come up during summer vacation. Or if my brother and I could be trapped in a van together for forty-five days without killing each other. Or if I was capable of getting my ass onstage. Or if Isaac was going too. But this wasn’t going to work. And if
I
bagged, the whole band would have to.
    A loud voice interrupted my thoughts. “I’m crazy sick of my hair,” she was saying. “It just, like,
hangs
there looking