Page 28 of Our Crooked Hearts
Gremlin was their pit mix, infamous in the neighborhoodfor all the things he’d eaten and somehow survived: channel changers, a bag of sugar, part of a laptop. “That’s good. Poor Gremlin.”
“PoorGremlin? He’ll be running around eating garbage when we’re all in the ground. Sometimes after he eats my shoes or whatever he leaves the pieces in mybed.Like he’s the Godfather.”
I laughed and Billy smiled a little shyly, raising his brows.
“You ready to call the cops yet?”
“Not yet.”
“You ready to go to sleep?”
“Who needs sleep?”
“Do you wanna go do something instead?”
I paused, mouth half open, and did a split-second audit of myself. Chapped lips, stretched-out tank top, my freshly bleached hair pushed back with a headband. It felt freeing to look so crap.
“What’s there to do in Woodbine in the middle of the night?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Go to Denny’s? Walk around the Super Walmart, eating baked goods?”
I looked up at him, at his freckles like stars. I didn’t want to be alone. And no part of me wanted to go back inside my house.
“Okay,” I told him. “Let’s go.”
