“Pack what?” Rowan asks from the middle of the living room floor, where she’s sitting like a pretzel with her hair all messed up from sleep. She’s cranky. “We don’t own anything.”
I look around the living room, realizing we’ve managed to collect a good deal of stuff since the fire. “I don’t know. All this stuff, I guess.”
“What are we supposed to put it in?” she whines.
I glare at her. “How about we shove it in your face hole?”
“How about we cram it up your butt . . . nose.”
We stare each other down. Finally I concede. “Buttnose is funny.”
“Thank you. It was an accident.”
“Oh, really?”
“You can cut the sarcasm.” She gets up and kicks me in the shin with her bare foot.
I snort my mockery in her direction.
She kicks me again and I grab her by the back of the neck and shove her to the couch and sit on her.
She pokes her fingers at me, trying to find a sensitive spot, so I’m forced to bounce up and down on her while giving her a noogie. Then she hits her mark. “Whoa!” I yell, and jump off of her. “Out of bounds, loser. That was totally my buttnose.”
She sits up and smooths her hair, trying not to laugh.
I back my way toward the kitchen in case she plans to try something else, and scrounge around for some shopping bags to pack our junk in.
Somewhere during the scuffle I got another text from Tori. I glance at it: I really am sorry and I need to talk to you.
I groan and shove the phone back into my pocket. “Great. Tori’s feeling guilty now,” I call out to Rowan. I skirt a small cousin in the dining room and head back to the living room with the bags. I throw a few at Rowan’s head.
“How can you tell?” she asks.
“She just sent me another text. Says she really is sorry and that she wants to talk.”
Rowan puts her clothes into a bag. “What did you tell her?”
“I haven’t responded.”
She shrugs. “She’s probably trying to deal with the shock of it.”
I feel a twinge in my gut, but I’m not giving in. “She could have prevented all of this.”
“Yeah, I think she probably knows that now,” Rowan says with a smirk.
“How would you know? You don’t even know her.”
“It’s a logical guess. Besides, you two aren’t exactly BFFs either.”
“Yeah we are. We’re BFFs. I know everything she’s thinking and you know nothing.”
Rowan rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying you’re not being very gracious. She practically died. This is a lot to take on from a hospital bed.”
I put my index finger in the air. “But! She didn’t die. Because Sawyer and I risked our lives for her. And she did not do the same for her fellow humans of Chicago.”
Rowan sighs and gives up. And for some reason I don’t feel very triumphant about my win.
Twenty-Three
Sunday is a day of joy. We have a new place. Not just an apartment—a whole little house in a neighborhood across from my old elementary school. And there’s no restaurant attached. It’ll be months at least before I have to go to school smelling like pizza. Mean people will cease to recognize me. I may survive high school after all.
Ben and Sawyer show up at the new place, surprising us with a pickup truck full of used furniture. My dad stares from the garage (yes, we have a little garage!) as they start unloading it onto the driveway (because yes, we have a driveway, too!), and walks over to them.
“What’s all this?” Dad says.
“We brought you some furniture,” Ben says. “Thought you could use it. Is it okay if we show you what’s here?”
Dad’s stern gaze sweeps over the scene.
“You don’t have to keep any of it,” Sawyer replies. He stops unloading, looking uncertain. “We just thought . . .” He wipes a bead of sweat from his temple and stops talking, likely scared to death.
My dad shakes the hard look off his face and clears his throat. “We can use it. At least for a little while until our new stuff comes.” He lifts his chin slightly. “Thank you.” But we all know our “new stuff ” hasn’t even been decided on, much less ordered. We’re being extra cautious with the insurance money since we don’t know how long it’ll take to get the new restaurant running.
I leave Sawyer outside to bond with Dad (har har) and follow Rowan into our new bedroom, where we each currently have two bags of clothes and toiletries and basically nothing else. We will have new beds to assemble later today, and I’m hoping there’s a dresser on that pickup truck.
“Where’d they get all that stuff?” Rowan asks.
“No idea,” I say. I’m not sure I want to know.
• • •
By evening, the house is starting to feel like a home, and the best part is that there are no little cousins running around. It’s a little bit bigger than our old apartment above the restaurant. Or at least, it feels that way without all the piles of junk. I worry that this place will fill up too. And I don’t know how to prevent that from happening, but I’m sure as hell going to try.
Sawyer returns later in his car, having taken the truck away, to see if we want him to pick up some burgers, and then he’s gone again with our orders. When he returns with the food, I watch him as he ever so slowly works his way into the good graces of my dad. And I think that makes Sawyer a good, quality guy. I will just have to keep him.