Free Scripted by Maya Rock Page A

I broke up,” she says flatly, staring straight ahead.
    My mind splinters, jagged cracks radiating from the words
Callen and I broke up.
I wet my lips nervously, feeling like I’d better say something, but Lia keeps going without even glancing at me.
    â€œYesterday, after the Diary, I went over to his house. To apologize about the night before. It was like he was waiting. Like he’d been waiting for weeks, for the right moment.” She glances over at me quickly, checking to make sure I’m listening, and I nod. “He said we want different things. That’s true.” She laughs bitterly. “
He’s
not even sure about the baseball apprenticeship.
I
have goals.”
    I draw circles in the dirt with my sneakers, trying to come up with the thoughts that belong to the trustworthy friend she needs. Not the boyfriend-coveting one she has.
    â€œYou do have goals,” I summon up. “Your ambition is one of the best things about you.” I mean it. She’s so certain about what she wants and how to get it, in every area of her life.
    While I float around, aimless, just like Callen.
    â€œI’ve been in shock since yesterday,” she says, dipping back in the swing and kicking at the air like a temperamental baby. “I thought things were fine,” she cries out, sitting up again. “I know we were arguing, but God. I completely misread him.”
    â€œI thought everything was okay too,” I say, though now the slight edge he had when talking about her on Friday seems much more significant. “I never saw it coming.” But Callen would make sure we didn’t; he’s so controlled.
    I’ll never have to watch them hold hands again, I realize. Never have to hear about potential close-ups again. No more spied-on kisses to drive spikes into my heart.
The torture is over.
    â€œLet’s walk,” she says, jumping off the swing. We leave the playground and head down Elm Street. A buzzing noise cuts in underneath birdsong, and I glance up. Another fighter jet.
    â€œI knew I’d get bored of him eventually,” Lia reflects, picking a leaf off a hedge. “Callen isn’t the best conversationalist. You know what I mean?” She tears the leaf apart, scattering the pieces on the ground, like she’s making a trail to help us find our way back.
    â€œYeah, he’s quiet,” I say. We pass house after house with Saturday-night family scenes on view. I see a father and a daughter bent over a board game in one house. At another, a family with three kids—a real rarity on the island—gobbles down sundaes at a mahogany dining room table.
    â€œBut I would have stayed with him longer,” she allows, increasing her pace. The longer we walk, the faster she goes. “If it had been my choice.”
    If it had been my choice.
“So many things are like that,” I say. “And it almost never is.”
    Lia frowns, her forehead creasing. “Nettie, God. Don’t bleak me out more.”
    â€œSorry.” We start down the wide road that leads out of the Arbor, passing the spot where I was thrown off the bike. No more houses, only trees and traffic lights and us strolling down the sidewalk, jolted by the occasional car speeding by. We pass the high school and cross into downtown.
    â€œWhere should we go?” Lia says as we pass a string of closed shops, including Delton’s, the luxury department store Terra mocked me about. Restaurants and bars are open, and since the weather is nice, Characters are dining outside, laughing softly and sipping wine. The crickets changed the downtown public spaces for
liberato,
so everything is in beiges and tans, all the benches are wicker, and all the signs are in a loosey-goosey typeface, like drunk Gothic lettering.
    We get caught up in a small crowd waiting to get inside the Game Palace. Last time we went, Selwyn stood by the Spate table for hours, mesmerized. She can’t