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Suck in the smoke, hold, hold, let it out. Again, until I can breathe.
As I start toward home, she falls in step beside me again, easily, as if we’ve done this a thousand times. “Look… I won’t ask you again to stay. I’m sorry.”
I flinch. She realized what is wrong, why I smoke—and now she’s letting me off the hook. I should be glad. Relieved.
I’m not. I have so many questions. So many doubts.
Holding the sweet smoke in my lungs, I glance at her. “Where are your parents, Sydney?”
“Call me Syd.”
“Syd.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
But I’m not letting this go, not this time. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Are they dead?”
“No. No, they’re not.”
She’s marching beside me, slender brows knit, a fierceness in her gaze that catches at me, hooks inside my chest.
“Mom left,” she says after a while, as we reach our building and climb up the steps to the entrance. “But she will be back. Any day now.”
Goddammit.
Putting out my cigarette on the wall, putting away the rest, I unlock the door and we step inside the dim stairwell. She has just opened up to me, told me her secret. Trusted me with it.
She fidgets with the ends of her hair, her eyes glittering in the half-darkness.
“Okay, Syd. I’ll stay a while longer.” I lick the sweetness of the weed off my lips. “I like my job, and… and I will see. A few more weeks. But then I really have to go.”
She throws herself into my arms, and it takes me a few moments to catch on and put my arms around her. “Thank you,” she whispers against my chest. “Thank you.”
I said just a few weeks, I want to remind her. Not long. I can’t.
But I just hold her tightly to me and keep my fucking mouth shut.
Chapter Seventeen
Sydney
He’s staying. He’s not leaving.
Long after Kash has gone into Nate’s apartment, I’m still thinking of his arms around me, of his breath on my hair. I think about how he’s smoking weed to cope with whatever is haunting him, and I want to help.
But how? He has never said a word about himself. He’s so private, so quiet and closed off, even when he’s taking care of us.
> And the other question, of course, now that I’ve convinced Kash not to vanish into the sunset—is how am I going to stay? I can’t afford it.
I lied to Nate. My savings—the money I made from selling everything of value in the apartment—is all gone. Even with my part-time job and my babysitting stints I can’t cover the rent and bills anymore.
Leaving is unavoidable. If Mom returns—when she returns—she’ll have to find me. I’ll leave my new address with Nate and West.
It’ll be fine. I’ll find a cheaper place and wait there. Maybe even close by.
But my optimism frays around the edges when I check again the money left in my wallet. Jeez, is that even enough for this month’s rent? Crap.
Trying not to panic, I go about cleaning my apartment. I understand why it calms West. There’s something about manual labor and keeping your hands busy when your mind’s all twisted up in knots that’s soothing. Sweep and mop the floors, dust the tables and counters, change the bed sheets, scrub the bathroom.
