Where We Used to Roam by Jenn Bishop (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📕

would have given him enough time to shower, shave, and get dressed before we took the commuter rail to the T so we could be at the museum by two p.m.

The trains didn’t run that often on Sundays, and even on the weekdays this winter, the T had been a mess.

“If you want, I can come with you.” Dad turned down the volume on the March Madness game. “Just say the word and I can—” He stopped to cough, a gross hacking one full of phlegm. He’d spent most of the weekend on the couch while Mom went into the city, getting wined and dined by running-sneaker salespeople swinging through Boston.

“No, he’s coming. He promised. Plus, Dad… you’re sick.”

He cleared his throat and smiled. “I can rally with the best of them.”

“You’d be that guy on the T everyone’s afraid of because you’re coughing all over the place. Thanks, though.”

He turned the volume back up. The coaches paced the sidelines, like how Austin’s coach used to. He probably still did; I just hadn’t been to any games this season. UCLA was playing Cincinnati and it was a close game, not that I cared or really knew much about college basketball. Austin and Dad used to watch the games together on the weekends all the time, but not since he’d quit the team.

I touched my phone screen to wake it back up. I don’t know why I kept doing that. It would wake up with a message, a quick vibration if Austin texted me back. Or make that awful whistling teakettle sound if someone called. Kennedy had sneakily changed it at lunch the other day and I kept forgetting to change it back.

I checked the PDF of the train schedule again. We’d already missed the train we’d been planning to take, but there was still another that left an hour later. We wouldn’t have a lot of time at the museum, but it wasn’t like I needed to see any other exhibits. It was only the sold-out Picasso exhibit that would be leaving soon. The next day, actually.

I swallowed down that tickling feeling in the back of my throat. Told myself it was just Dad’s cold coming for me even though it felt like something worse.

My phone buzzed on my lap, sending my heartbeat skipping. Maybe Austin was on his way. Letting me know he’d showered at his friend’s house and that we could take an Uber into the city to make up time.

But it was a text from Becca. Want to go to Starbucks? My dad can take us.

I slammed my phone down on the sofa. Ever since she got back from Paris, things had been weird between us. We still walked to school together, but I’d started skipping my second breakfasts at her house on Saturdays. The truth was, I couldn’t forget those things Kennedy said about her over February break. Never mind the lie I told Kennedy about how we hadn’t hung out in a while.

I couldn’t imagine not being friends with Becca, but I also couldn’t imagine how things would be for us if she never changed. Kennedy had a point. Was she going to keep sleeping with that kitty blanket all through high school?

But it was about more than the blanket too. There were other ways Becca was starting to seem immature. Even though she was still probably the smartest person I knew. I wanted to be able to talk about crushes without her getting all weirded out—or seeming bored by it. I wanted her to care about that and all the other stuff that Kennedy and Lucy did: TV shows and bands and artists. All of it.

It hadn’t mattered in elementary school, how Becca and I had such different interests, but lately it kept feeling like it did matter. Like it mattered a lot. Like she didn’t really understand me anymore.

And I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to make her be the person I wanted her to be.

“Emma.” Dad muted the game. “Really, hon, I’m more than happy to take you into the city. We can drive in. You know what, I’ll even swing by CVS and get one of those face masks so I won’t infect anyone at the MFA.”

My eyes smarted. He didn’t get it. This was supposed to be something Austin and I did together, without him or Mom. Like we used to. We had only one more year of it too. And then he’d be off to college somewhere far away. That was what he said when people asked where he wanted to go. Far away from us?

Well, now he was. He might have lived in our house with me and Mom and Dad, but he felt far away.

What college even wanted someone who flunked math their junior year, anyway? Did he ever stop to think about that?

“What do you say, E?”

What I wanted to say was, how long are you going to let him get away with this? But before I had a chance, the loud whistle of a teakettle cut through the quiet. I snagged my phone from the other side of the sofa, ready to let him have it. Everything Mom and Dad had decided to swallow down was ready to come out of me. Pour out and all over him, like a pot of boiling-hot tea.

Except the name flashing across the screen wasn’t Austin. And it wasn’t Becca either. It was Kennedy.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said to Dad. I shuffled up the stairs, waiting till I was halfway up before I swiped across to answer the call. “Hey, Ken.”

She must have heard something in my voice because right away hers came down a few notches. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I sniffled. I closed my bedroom door behind me, sliding down it until I was on the floor, the back of my head thumping lightly against the door. “No.”

“Em, what’s wrong?”

I hadn’t said anything to her or Lucy about how Austin had been