Free You Could Be Home by Now by Tracy Manaster

were en route to elope and wanted her as witness. A pregnancy test, positive, not Sierra’s. He needed her to intercede before Sierra castrated him with a melon spoon.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œFrom school. I’m going to see what’s going on.”
    â€œLet him down easy.” Gran winked. If plotted on a graph, her swoony silliness would peak each morning before her walk with the per-vet. They’d watched him on the news last night. Some brief per-vet platitude about being sorry for Mona Rosko. Then the lady herself, large and stern. She hadn’t been ugly though; her stillness transformed her. Her silence, too. The way she’d crossed the lawn. She’d worn beat-up sneakers, but she moved like a bride. The hammer split the air and Lily felt all flutter and gauze in the face of the woman’s I am. Gran didn’t get it. She wondered why they’d only used a few seconds of Ben. There needed to be a verb. Crushversate: to obsessively bring up one’s crush in conversation.
    Of course Gran thought Rocky had come a’courtin’. Her whole mind was wired that way. Let him down easy. Har-dee-har. “Things aren’t always about that,” Lily said. Her parents’ friends always teased her about dating, like talking romance was the accepted shorthand for acknowledging she wasn’t a kid anymore without having to actually engage. In the street, Rocky bounced foot to foot. Trust the Rockster to get himself the thousand miles to Arizona and then forget her grandmother’s address.
    â€œThings aren’t always about what?” Gran asked.
    â€œLove.” Lily made a sour-milk face and wondered if Grandpa would have started crushing so soon if Gran had died first.
    â€œI know. But wouldn’t it be better if they were?”
    Lily was spectacularly unqualified to say. Her one kiss had been a disaster. She went out into the morning bright. Rocky’s head whipped around. His features resolved: almost Rocky, but not quite. The mouth was broader, and arranged into an expression of completely un-Rockified pensiveness. He waved, which if Lily were ever crowned Queen of the Universe, was a gesture she’d ban about twelve seconds into her reign. There was always that moment of social panic: how to be one-hundred-percent sure you’re the intended recipient. She didn’t wave back. For all she knew, the guy had a dandruff problem and was raising his hand to scratch. Rocky II came sprinting over. “Hey, check it out. That’s my paper!”
    â€œNo way. It’s my gran’s.” Aside from his mouth, the resemblance to Rocky I was terrifying: the hair, the chin, the slightly crooked nose. The absent-from-kindergarten-the-day-they-taught-sharing impulse to waltz on up and say mine .
    Rocky II laughed. It made his Adam’s apple prominent. “Yeah, sorry. I meant that’s the paper I work for. Nicky Tullbeck,” He extended his hand like a mayoral candidate.
    â€œMy grandmother said you were lurking.”
    â€œI’m reporting ,” Nicky said. He wiped his hand on his pants when it was clear Lily was not about to shake.
    â€œThis just in: local granddaughter gets the paper.”
    â€œYour grandparents live here?”
    â€œMy gran.”
    â€œLittle Red Riding Hood.” Rocky did that same smug thing with his chin when he thought he’d said something smart. If she had her phone she’d take a picture for Sierra, who would promptly drop dead at the blissful prospect of two of them. Nicky attempted a flirtatious grin. “To grandmother’s house you go? Like in the story.”
    â€œI’m not stupid,” she said. “I just didn’t think it was funny.”
    â€œFine. Sorry. You been visiting long?”
    â€œI’m not visiting. I’m living here in secret.”
    She hadn’t had a sense of how lousy his posture was until he straightened. “For real? Like that kid?” His