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

“Yeah, she—” Kennedy started to say something, but then Lucy cut her off.

“She asked me.” Lucy ignored Kennedy sticking out her tongue. “When I grow up I either want to be a vet or work in the music industry. Like in Nashville or LA or New York City.”

“Those are pretty different things,” I said. “And places.”

Lucy shrugged. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Was it weird that I didn’t know yet? All I knew was it wasn’t going to be something like what Mom and Dad did. Every day, surrounded by so many people, having to be on all the time. “I’m not sure,” I said.

Kennedy eyed my arm. “My tattooing urge has not been quenched.”

“Okay, fine.” I took an arm out of my hoodie and extended it toward her.

The marker tickled my skin, and it was hard to hold my arm straight without giggling. At first I couldn’t tell what she was drawing, but as she continued it became clear.

“It’s you!” Kennedy let my arm drop. “And okay, I hope your parents don’t get mad, but these markers are not super washable.…”

“They won’t care.” I twisted my forearm for a better look at my manga self. She’d gotten everything right. My long ponytail, my black-and-white-checked leggings, my huge hoodie, my New Balance. And my sketchbook, clutched to my chest.

She’d seen me. Me.

CHAPTER FOUR

The following day at school, I found Kennedy and Lucy in the cafeteria. Turned out, we’d all had fourth-period lunch the whole time and never even knew. Which was good news for me, since Becca had fifth-period lunch, and I’d been sitting with a bunch of girls from my ELA class who were nice, sure, but they spent most of lunch talking about which jeans made their butts look good. As Austin said, they weren’t exactly my people. But the more time I spent with Lucy and Kennedy, I was starting to think they were. And I wanted Becca to meet them, so I invited them to my brother’s football game that Saturday. The high school team was in the state finals, which was a pretty big deal. Or at least a big deal to people who care about football.

“I think you’ll like them,” I told Becca Friday morning on our walk to school. “Kennedy’s kind of loud, but she’s funny. And Lucy can be really quiet, but then she’ll just slay you with something. Like the other day at lunch, you should’ve seen her impression of this contestant from The Voice. She could be on SNL someday.”

“Do they like football?” Becca asked.

“Do we?”

Becca laughed. “Good point.” We’d been tagging along with my parents to Austin’s games ever since he was on JV. And sure, neither of us would ever be able to explain all the rules of football, but we could tell when a touchdown happened. And honestly, that was really all that mattered. When everyone around us cheered, we cheered too. When everyone around us was bummed, we were bummed.

And when everyone around us lost their minds because of something amazing that happened on the field, that was when we lived it up. My arms would turn into confetti rockets. Pretend, obviously. And Becca would mime amazement at all of the confetti blasting out of my arms.

It was a whole thing.

Kennedy and Lucy were getting a ride from Lucy’s stepdad, who was meeting up with some old friends at the game. Becca rode with us.

“Did I tell you about Stoughton’s linebacker?” Dad said as we idled in traffic, heading onto the Pike. “Three hundred pounds.”

Even though she was in the front seat, I could hear Mom grit her teeth. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

For the past few years, Mom had been reading studies about the long-term damage from concussions and trying to convince Austin to switch to cross-country. Dad said it was pointless—you couldn’t take football away from Austin now—and he’d remind Mom that Austin wasn’t good enough or big enough to play in college anyway. Plus, Dad had played football in high school too, and his brain was perfectly fine. Mom said that was “debatable.”

The twenty minutes to the stadium might’ve felt like forever with Mom and Dad getting testy, but having Becca in the back always saved me.

Ever since we were little, we’d been playing the same game on long car rides. Especially when we went to the Cape. We’d make up stories about the people in the cars that we passed or that passed us, trying to top each other.

A Mercedes-Benz station wagon pulled up alongside us. The driver’s shoulder-length gray hair was blown out, and she had on huge black sunglasses.

“She’s going to the funeral of her secret lover. They’d just gotten back together after twenty years apart when he died unexpectedly,” I said.

“How’d he die?” Becca asked.

“Choking to death on a hot dog.”

Becca snorted. “Glamorous.”

“It was an across-the-tracks love affair. He was a hot dog vendor at Fenway.”

“How tragic,” she said playfully, glancing out her window as we passed a beat-up Mazda pickup. “Ooh! That’s a good one! He is a part-time geophysicist. Full-time serial killer.”

“But is he going to work?” I asked. “Or on the hunt for his next victim?”

“Both!” Becca was cracking herself up. Me too. I was starting to realize I should’ve peed before we’d left the house.

“This game’s kind of morbid, no?” Mom asked.

“It’s fun, though,” I said. “And it’s just pretend.”

“Sorry, Mrs. O’Malley. We can stop if it’s bothering you.”

“Maybe tone it down a tiny notch? Perhaps I’m a little more squeamish than your parents.”

She definitely was. I’m pretty sure anyone was. Being surgeons, Becca’s parents had been deep into all that gross body stuff for so long it wasn’t even gross anymore. Well, to them. One time I was at their house for dinner and her dad told us this story about how one of his patients hadn’t pooped for twenty-six days. I’d like to unhear that one, actually.

“Ooh!