Free Leftovers by Heather Waldorf Page B

grinning. “I have a nice ass. Didn’t your family ever take any bare-assed baby photos of you?”
    I grab a big rock off the beach, wishing it were a grenade, except it’s me that might explode. I toss it far out into the river, where it lands with a loud
KERPLOP
.
    Sullivan reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t be such a prude,” he snickers.
    â€œI’m not a prude.”
    â€œThen I guess suggesting a round of strip poker tonight wouldn’t be out of the question?” Sullivan asks, his eyes bright with amusement.
    Just ignore him, just ignore him, just ignore him, I tell myself.
    â€œNo? Maybe we could listen to a few Barenaked Ladies CDS ?”
    I suck air in, holding my breath as long as I can, waiting for the earth to open up and suck me down into the dirt.
    â€œSarah?”
    â€œI thought you wanted to work on the puzzle tonight, Sullivan!” I growl. “Or would you rather not? Because it’s your damn puzzle. I don’t care if—” I stop, because I do care. No puzzle, no concert. No concert, no treasure hunt for me. “Sorry,” I mumble, because I am. I really wish I could laugh as easily as Sullivan does about being the “butt” of Brant’s and Nicky’s jokes.
    Sullivan raises an eyebrow at me and lets out a low whistle. “Wow...are you ever an Oscar today.”
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about now?”
    â€œAn Oscar. You know?
Sesame Street
? Oscar the
Grouch
.”
    I’d leave now, but I don’t have the heart to rouse Judy, who’s snoring away, her soft black ears flapping in the breeze. “Aren’t you supposed to be hosing out the barn this afternoon?” I ask Sullivan. Maybe he’ll take the hint and leave me alone.
    â€œActually...Mom sent me to check on you.” Sullivan blushes.
    Figures. “Victoria worries too much.”
    â€œIt’s a refreshing change for her to be worried about someone other than me.”
    â€œWhat’s she got to worry about you for?” I ask. I’m curious because Sullivan seems to me like the poster boy for normalcy, if you can get past his weird shoe fetish, his motormouth and his thing for me. And if I can get him talking about himself, maybe he’ll stop pestering me with questions.
    Sullivan takes in a long breath and chews on his lip. His expression reminds me of that day in the canoe, when I’d asked him a similar question about Victoria’s over-protectiveness, and he’d told me to watch out for a nonexistent piece of driftwood.
    But he doesn’t hedge this time. “Well, you might as well know, seeing we’re...you know...friends. I had cancer. Leukemia.”
    I blink hard. “You did?”
    Sullivan draws a tic-tac-toe board in the dirt with his finger. “First grade. With Mrs. Fenton. Don’t you remember?”
    â€œYou were in first grade with me?”
    He draws an
X
in the center square, solemn now. “We shared a glue stick in arts and crafts.”
    â€œNo. I always shared a glue stick with a kid named Steve.” Steve had thick, curly brown hair, a Ninja Turtle lunch box, and Disney Band-Aids on his knees and elbows almost all the time. He got a bloody nose—a real gusher—one day. The class was making Thanksgivingturkeys out of brown lunch bags and construction paper. I remember because Steve dripped blood on my turkey. Mike Kindale got jealous. He said the blood made my turkey look like “a real turkey just after my daddy’s shot it.” He wanted Steve to bleed on his paper-bag turkey too, but Mrs. Fenton rushed Steve to the office for first aid instead.
    Steve never came back.
    Except, it turns out, he did. Sullivan laughs. “Steve was a nickname. Short for STV. Sullivan Thomas Vickerson is too big a mouthful for any six-year-old kid.” He nudges me and motions down to his tic-tac-toe board. “Your turn.”
    I draw an
O
in