Page 37 of What You Left Me

Shit.

What stage is this?

• • •

Wake-up-before-dawn Aminah tried to follow me and Cameron to Spencer’s room, lost us on the way there, and then somehow found us on the purple floor. “Whatever you two are up to, I’m making myself a part of it.”

Daniel and Turrey were both awake and deep in conversation by the time we figured out how to get back to the waiting room. The mention of a still-unexplained but exciting task was enough to get both boys to sign on board. And that’s how Daniel’s Prius became the unofficial Believe Marty Can Fly shuttle bus. Eco-friendly means space efficient, which actually means Turrey’s right elbow in my rib cage and Cameron’s left leg hooked over mine. Aminah managed to get shotgun without a single argument, which is no real surprise. The air seems to gets tighter when she wants something.

I don’t mind. Close quarters are becoming more comfortable than distance.

Daniel taps his hands against the steering wheel. “I’m thinking now is a good time to tell us what we’re doing.”

“Going to Martin’s,” Cameron says. She adds a nod to encourage a normal reaction from the rest of the car, as if this is a logical place for us to go this early in the morning. Or ever really.

“What?” Aminah asks. She’s been a little distant since she found Cameron and me. It seems like she could tell a moment passed between us, and it’s probably eating her up inside that she wasn’t a part of it.

“Why?” Daniel asks at the same time. Both of their heads jerk in unison to see me in the back seat. Before my mouth can open, there’s a knock on the passenger side window.

I look past Turrey’s hulking figure and see Brooke Delgado waving. “What are you guys doing?” she asks. Her words are muted by our glass barrier, but she enunciates every syllable so we understand.

Daniel mimes a sign of the cross. I lean over Turrey and open the window a sliver. This is another chance to get more information. I’m not passing it up. “There’s room up front,” I say.

“Looks like Michael should’ve sat shotgun,” Daniel snarks.

Aminah opens her door. “Don’t start.”

Brooke snuggles in. The essence of her Herbal Essences has not yet faded. She forever smells newly showered. “I saw you guys leaving, and I followed. I’ve been inside this hospital for so long, I’m desperate for fresh air.” She takes in everyone’s faces one by one. Turrey twitches when she meets his eye. “Where are we going?”

“Apparently, we’re off to Martin’s,” Daniel says. He catches my attention in the rearview mirror then breaks momentarily to glance at Turrey. I raise my brows to let him know I caught that. He looks away.

“Is that where his family went?” Brooke asks. Her seat belt hiccups as she tries to pull it across both bodies in the front seat. “Sorry,” she says to a grumbling Aminah. “It’d be ignorant not to be cautious.”

“Six people in a car best for four,” Aminah replies, the unspoken part of her sentence saying,We’re already ignorant.

“If you knew anything, you’d know they’re with his aunts,” Turrey mutters.

Brooke continues radiating friendliness in our direction. She must not have heard him.

“Spencer asked me to check something out,” I tell her. My cheeks warm from the heat of everyone else’s confusion.

Brooke turns her torso toward the front of the car again. She flicks her wrist as if dismissing the mere mention of Spencer’s name. “I hate him.”

Turrey’s arm muscles tense against my side.

“Couldn’t even stay sober for his own graduation,” she scoffs. “This is his fault.”

In all the fuss, no one’s talked about the why of it. At least not to us outsiders. I think back on Turrey’s reaction to Aminah’s offer to make margaritas. Spencer’s hospital room. The lack of flowers. The nurse ignoring us.

“Fly was drinking too,” Turrey says.

Brooke whirls back around with such ferocity that her hair flips into Aminah’s mouth. “How do you know that?”

“Because unlike your fake ass, I’m actually his friend.”

Daniel pulls out of our parking spot and rolls the windows down. Aminah turns up the radio until it’s blasting. It doesn’t help. Everything becomes so quiet that noise sounds like nothing at all.

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