Where We Used to Roam Jenn Bishop (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

I’d ever been to was at Fenway Park. Mom had tickets to see Pearl Jam with Betsy from the store, but at the last minute Betsy couldn’t make it, so she took me. I couldn’t understand anything the singer guy was saying, but I guess Mom did.

The door to Austin’s room was closed. I stopped right outside, straining to hear if he was watching a movie on his iPad, which he’d been doing a lot lately. Had he fallen asleep?

“Austin?”

I heard a mumble from inside, so I pushed the door open a crack. It was weird, opening the door to Austin’s room, but it was still hard for him to get up and do it himself.

He was propped up in bed with his iPad on his lap, his cell phone next to him. The upper-left corner of the Modest Mouse poster had fallen down. It was the kind of thing Austin would’ve usually reached up and fixed right away—he loved that poster—but that would require two healthy arms. Scattered across his bed were schoolbooks and magazines—Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated—plus two empty Pop-Tarts sleeves and a bag of tortilla chips.

“What?” he snapped. His eyes had dark circles under them and they looked runny.

“Are you okay?”

“Am I okay? Hmm, Emma. I can’t move my arm. I’m missing most of basketball season. We just dropped a game to Concord-Carlisle, which you know would never happen if I was playing, oh, and because things weren’t already crappy enough, Savannah just dumped me.”

I gasped. “She did?”

“Guess nobody gives a crap when I’m not the quarterback or the—”

“That’s not true, A. She’s a jerk. She’s a big—”

“Just stop, all right? You don’t know anything, Emma.” He reached with his left arm for the water bottle on his nightstand, but it toppled over, landing on the floor with a thunk before rolling out of reach. “Dammit.” He closed his eyes, slamming the back of his head against the headboard.

“Austin.”

“I can’t do anything for myself. Do you know how that feels?”

Now it was my eyes that were smarting as I grabbed the water bottle and held it out to him. Austin snatched it from my hand. His good arm was still plenty strong.

“Just go, Emma. I don’t… I just can’t. Not right now.”

So I did.

It wasn’t until I was back in my room that I realized I was still holding the milkshake we’d brought back for him.

I sat on the edge of my bed, sucking down that chocolate milkshake and thinking about all the things I did for Austin. All those basketball and football games. Those cold nights in the stands. The blowout games we could’ve left in the third quarter.

What did I get in return? No, really?

I didn’t tear his labrum. I didn’t break up with him. How come I was the one he was yelling at, then? Just because I was there? That wasn’t fair.

I sucked harder, slurping up the last of the milkshake, until all that was left was air.

You don’t know anything, Emma.

I aimed the empty cup for my trash can and watched as it rattled in there. A three-point shot. Better than Austin could do right now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Any other time, Austin would’ve been the one to drive me to the band showcase at Kennedy and Lucy’s former school the Friday night leading into February break. But with his shoulder not fully healed, he still couldn’t drive. And maybe, if I’m going to be totally honest, there were other reasons too.

Since the day Savannah broke up with him, when he blew up at me, I’d been avoiding him. Not entirely, of course. Most nights he still ate dinner with us. But after? When we’d both be upstairs in our rooms doing homework? He’d started closing the door to his bedroom more. Something he used to do only when Savannah was over.

Now that I was in the gym at Comey Valley Charter, watching Strawberry Jammin’ for myself, I could see why Kennedy didn’t think that was the right name for them. Strawberries made me think of summer, but there was nothing summery about their music. It was kind of dark. Moody, even.

Kennedy had dyed that one chunk of her hair an electric blue and woven in a few feathers. She was bopping her head to the beat.

“That’s him,” Lucy whispered in my ear. “Leo. The singer.”

His hair was curly, just long enough to tuck behind his ears, and he was wearing thick black plastic glasses. He leaned into the mic, shouting lyrics to some song I didn’t know yet but somehow already liked, and strumming on his electric guitar.

Behind the drums sat a boy wearing a black beanie and the kind of vintage band shirt my dad would sometimes wear on weekends. Though I couldn’t make out what band. I couldn’t stop watching him. The way his tongue would creep out the corner of his mouth the tiniest bit. Like he was concentrating so, so hard at keeping the rhythm even. The drummer holds everything together, doesn’t he? Like the glue of the band?

I think Austin said that before.

If I were making a shadow box for Strawberry Jammin’, what would go in it? After I told them to get a new name, I mean. I think the background could be a vintage T-shirt. Something threadbare from Goodwill. I could put some guitar picks inside it. Maybe a drumstick or two. And then maybe, maybe if I had the lyrics to their songs, I could cut them out, glue a few of them to the inside of the glass.

Yeah, that could work.

When their set ended, CVC’s music teacher stepped up to the mic. “Coming up next, in about fifteen minutes, the Lavenders!” Off in the shadows, a girl with a purple T-shirt knotted above her high-waisted jeans had an acoustic guitar slung over her back. She was talking to a few other girls, also wearing various shades of purple, including one who was twirling drumsticks. An all-girl band? We