Free The Memory Jar by Elissa Janine Hoole Page B

you?” she asks, nodding toward the brick building. “Like will they call her cell?”
    I relax into the passenger seat, breathing out all the anxiety I’ve been holding. “You have a plan?” I say. She has a plan. Dani’s good at plans, and she’s good at getting in trouble without getting in trouble .
    â€œMomma Fran will call in for me, and she’ll let us hang upstairs at the shop, do some baking, watch some movies.” She steps on the gas. “I’ll give you a manicure, and you can eat my froofy lunch. We need a mental health day, Taylor, that’s all there is to it. We haven’t even had a chance to get the hospital smell off you.”
    â€œThat’s a pretty good plan,” I say. It’s thin, but simple. I do need a mental health day, but after the way Mom argued with me, there’s a pretty high chance of her checking up on my attendance. The question is, how much do I care? “My English grade isn’t going to get me on any scholarship lists, though.”
    â€œPut this in your essay,” says Dani, and that’s that. “You’re going through a bit of a rough patch.” She dials her mom Fran as she drives. “You might even be a hero.”
    I look out the passenger window, the narrow mining company houses with their attics and dormered ceilings. It’s true. But maybe I’m the villain.

Then
    It wasn’t unusual for me to sneak off for an afternoon in St. Cloud, but usually Scott knew in advance that I was coming. The entire drive down there—two whole hours—my hands wouldn’t stop sweating. I put the heater on full blast and alternated, one hand on the wheel and one held in front of the vent. The roads were good, the sun bright in the clear but colorless winter sky, and I squinted as I drove, wondering how the conversation would go.
    â€œWe were careful.”
    That’s what he said, but I still can’t think about the look on his face. I still don’t understand the feelings I saw flitting across it. Surprise, sure, bordering on shock, but there was something of joy, too. And there’s a part of me that felt so warmed by that, wanted to snuggle up in the idea of forever.
    â€œYeah, but you know. Still.” I spread my hands like, what else can I say? He held me, then, and he still smelled like the fitness center, where he’d been lifting. A strange glimmer of jealousy rolled over me as I felt his strong arms, but I couldn’t figure out why I imagined him holding some other girl. I shrugged it off, the whole image. We had bigger things on our minds at the moment, but later, in scattered pieces, it would come back to me. What triggered the jealousy? Was there some other smell beneath the warm human scent of perspiration in the hollow of his neck, the spice of his deodorant wafting up through the embrace—was it the smell of someone else? Our visit was, by necessity, brief, and we agreed to text later, keeping “the issue” secret to be safe. I had to be back up in Sterling Creek by 2:30 at the latest. The drive back was filled with nagging thoughts about our relationship, about whether the tension in our conversations was all new or whether something had been changing before any of this ever happened.
    I took a deep, steadying breath as I walked through the door of the library, inhaling the reassuring and unchanging smell of books inside the old Carnegie building. Two more deep breaths and I was sure the smell wasn’t going to make me queasy. When Dani’s arms enclosed me in a quiet, fierce hug, I wasn’t sure if the tears welling up were from the complexities of my visit with Scott or from relief that at least this sanctuary was still sacred. I didn’t know what I would do if the smell of books made me sick.
    â€œDid he take it like a man?” It was our code for total breakdown, complete with a pint of ice cream, two spoons, and a marathon of sappy