Somebody Else's Sky (Something in the Way #2)(26)

I could've hugged her right then. It might've been the most honest thing I'd ever heard her say. She was scared. Did she think she was alone in that? All of us were just doing our best. "You didn't," I said. "You came through."

"I wanted to give it all to my dad to take care of. He's good at that kind of stuff. He probably would've gotten you out of the lease altogether." She spread her hands on the table as if she were inspecting her nail polish. I could see her thinking, though. "But then I remembered how good you'd been to me that night we had spaghetti at camp. You'd arranged that nice dinner for me, and you made me feel, I don't know . . . like I mattered to you. So even though I wanted to walk away, I decided to figure it out."

That night at camp felt like a lifetime ago. It made me think of Bucky, and how I'd wanted to wring that bastard's throat, even back then. Tiffany put on a good show, but I'd pretty much had her number from day one. If I'd been the first man to make her feel special for who she really was, then maybe it wasn't so farfetched that she was still sitting here.

That didn't mean she didn't deserve to be warned about what she'd be getting into with me. If anything, I owed her that.

The family at the table next to us stood and hugged. Time was up. "I'm not the same person I was back then."

"Yes, you are."

I wasn't. I'd seen more. I knew more. None of it good. Moving in with Tiffany would mean relying on her. Trusting her. I hadn't done that since I'd left my aunt's at eighteen. I had to know Tiffany wasn't going to scare easily. "You know what I thought about when I was alone too long?" 

"What?" she asked.

"Fucking. Not in a nice way." I paused to check her reaction. She went a little pink but didn't back down. "I come out of here, I'm not going to be able play Country Club Man like your dad. I'm not going to golf, and brunch, and go sailing or whatever the fuck it is your friends do. It's going to be hard. I'm doing what I have to do for the basics-shelter, food, work."

She nodded. "I can help."

"I'm giving you an out." I'd had nothing before this, but at least I'd had a future. Now all I had was a past and a record. "You should take it."

"The more you tell me to, the less I want to."

Sounded about right. Tiffany looked hopeful. Maybe even happy. She was sitting here because of how I'd made her feel one night thirteen months ago. She'd done all right for herself since then, too, so she could be the girl I expected her to be. I hadn't done much right lately, but this-this felt good. Tiffany had been pretty lost when I'd met her, and now, she was making an effort. I'd helped someone, and after feeling as though my presence had made things worse for a lot of people, it made me want to keep trying. To get out of here. I could no longer join the police force and improve people's lives like I'd wanted to, but Tiffany, at least, I could help.

It was the first time I could remember feeling like I had any real power over my situation. She'd asked if I was disappointed in her, and I wasn't.

"Will you let Gary know I'm out of solitary?" I asked, getting up. "I gotta talk to him about something."

Her eyebrows scrunched. "What?"

"Work." It was partly true. If I didn't have to worry about a place to live, it meant I could focus on the next most important thing-money. On my old crew, a few of the guys I'd worked with had had been ex-cons. Gary might know people in construction. But since I'd gone into isolation, some questions had grown bigger in my mind. How had I gotten here at all? Was there more to my arrest than bad timing? Had anyone else been involved? As the director at camp, Gary would know more than most.

"I already called him. He's coming next week." She cocked her head. "You're not going to try and move in with him, are you?"

"I barely know him," I said. Gary had been to see me several times, and I considered him a good friend, but that was easy to do when you didn't have much else. I wasn't about to ask him to go through all the shit that came with housing a criminal. "He didn't offer anyway."

"Oh. Good," she said. "Because my place, it won't be much, but I know we can make it our own. We can make it a home."

Home. I hadn't had a home since Maddy'd died. I didn't even know the meaning of the word anymore.

But I still needed a place to live, and I could live with Tiffany for a while.





7





Lake, 1995





AP History had never been so tedious, and that was saying a lot. The secondhand on the clock above the door moved about as fast as Progress, the class pet everyone called a turtle but was actually a tortoise. Mr. Caws was so monotone, he could dull anything, even the ache in my heart some days. But not today. Today, my chest hurt implacably, unyieldingly . . . and for good reason.