Wild(97)

            I glanced around her room. The pink canopied bed. High school pennants on the wall. Pictures of her friends and boyfriend all over her mirror and in frames on her dresser. My world had been like this. It should feel more familiar. This should feel like home.

            Instead, I felt like a visitor. I always assumed I would return to this place someday, but now the urge was gone. I wanted to go back to Dartford. To my friends. To my life there.

            “I saw the guy on Facebook,” Amber’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

            “What?” I looked at her.

            “The guy walking beside you. When you were handcuffed in the blue dress.”

            “Logan?” I frowned at her.

            “Is that his name?” She returned her attention to her scrapbook, flipping the page. “He was smoking hot. Is he your new boyfriend?”

            I studied her bent head before replying. “No.”

            It felt weird talking about him here with Amber. He was part of another world. A different world.

            And so are you. Now. I had another life. One I liked.

            “Well, that’s good. Mom has been on the phone with Harris’s mom a lot lately.”

            I tensed beside her. She kept talking as she flipped through her scrapbook, looking at photos she had doubtlessly looked at a hundred times. Amber in front of a limo with her boyfriend and another couple. Amber grinning as a corsage was slipped on her wrist.

            I wondered if she ever got tired of looking at these photos.

            Suddenly, I was glad that I had dated Harris. If for no other reason than that I followed him to Dartford and expanded my horizons and found friends like Pepper and Emerson and Suzanne.

            And Logan.

            “It’s just a matter of time,” she was saying.

            “What is?”

            “You and Harris. That’s what Mom thinks.”

            I shook my head. “No. Not happening.”

            She looked up. “Good.”

            “Good?”

            “Yeah.” She closed her book with a snap. “I always thought he was a prick. Walking around Muskogee with a huge ego because his dad is the mayor. I mean Muskogee is this big.” She pinched her fingers together in the air. “It’s not like he’s the president’s son or something.”

            I smiled. “No. He’s not.”

            When I saw that guy in the photo with you . . . I confess I was hoping you had moved on. Especially with someone as yummy as that.”

            My mouth sagged. Maybe my little sister wasn’t such a Mary Sue after all.

            A gentle knock sounded at the door. Mom pushed the door open. “Hey, girls.”

            She might have been addressing us both, but her gaze was fixed on me. Mom crossed her arms and cleared her throat in that way she did when she was settling in for a long talk.

            Amber rose and set her book back down on her desk, not missing the cue. She grabbed her keys and phone. “I’m going over to Jeremy’s.”

            “Back for dinner,” Mom said.

            We didn’t say anything for several minutes. Sitting on the bed, I listened to my sister back out of the driveway until her Prius faded from hearing.

            It was a little bit after noon. Mom was off for the majority of the summer, but Dad was working. I did wonder why she didn’t wait for him to get home before having this talk. He might be my stepfather, but they had always handled the big conversations together. It gave me hope. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad since he wasn’t present.