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

due next week, and this is the only time that worked for everyone. You don’t mind hanging out here for a bit, do you?”

“No, no,” I say. “That’s totally fine. How long?”

“An hour? Maybe an hour and a half.” She peeks into the café and waves at a group of girls circled around a table. “One sec,” she shouts at them.

There’s a sinking feeling in the center of my chest. Sadie didn’t want to give me this tour of town today. She had to. She didn’t have a choice. I’m just this stranger thrust into her life for the summer. No warning, no nothing.

She’s not going to be my buddy here for the summer. Maybe at first she’ll pretend to her mom like she’s trying, but it’s not going to happen. She’s got her own life, and she’s not going to squeeze me into it. I’d be stupid to expect that.

“Text me when you’re done?” I say, acting like everything’s fine. It has to be, so it is.

I enter her number into my phone and she enters mine, and then she’s off. And just like yesterday at the airport, again I’m on my own.

The library is spacious and modern, not at all like the library back home. That one is old enough to have a plaque outside saying it was built in the 1800s. Not that I really went there that much. The public library was on the other side of town, closer to where Kennedy and Lucy live. Actually, if I’d gone more, I probably would’ve met them earlier. From what Kennedy said, the teen librarian was super into anime like her and Lucy, and they even had an anime club for a few years.

Then again, I never exactly needed a library. Being friends with Becca was like having my own personal librarian.

At one of the computers, I search “bison” and write down the Dewey decimal numbers on a little card. It takes a while to locate the books, but nobody offers to help me, and actually, it’s kind of nice to wander through the stacks until I find the books with the right numbers. I pull out a thick hardcover and wipe the dust off the top of it. Bison: An American Icon.

It’s the kind of book Dad would pack for vacation. He always goes with nonfiction, the longer the better, even though his bookmark never seems to make it past the first quarter. He’s too chatty for reading. Always busy gabbing with strangers or bugging the three of us.

I take the book over to the Teen Room, where there are two booths, a leather sofa, and several rolling shelves of books. It’s cool and quiet, except for a librarian typing away. I settle into the leather sofa, open up the bison book, and start reading.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here when someone says, “You stole my seat,” and I jump.

“S-s-sorry,” I stammer.

“Whoa, whoa. I was kidding. You don’t have to move.” It’s a boy about my age. He’s wearing white pants and a black T-shirt with a quote from Harry Potter, I SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I AM UP TO NO GOOD. His curly brown hair is the littlest bit messy, kind of how Chris’s looked this morning, but more like he made it that way on purpose. “I’ve never seen you here before. You new?”

There’s something about the way he talks that’s different, but I can’t put my finger on it. “I guess.”

“You’re either new or you’re not. There’s not really much to guess.”

It’s an accent, I realize. Kind of countryish? Except Delia, Chris, and Sadie don’t have one.

“Fine, then. You got me. I’m new.”

“Knew it,” he says, raising his eyebrows. He slips a bookmark into his book and reaches out a hand. “I’m Tyler.”

“Emma.”

“Emma,” he repeats. “From…?”

“Oh, right.” I laugh. “Boston.”

“Emma from Baw-ston. Did I do it right?”

“That accent?” I shake my head. “Not exactly.”

“So, what the heck are you even doing out here, then, Emma from Baaaah-ston. No offense, but people from Boston don’t usually hang out in this corner of Wyoming.”

“My parents wanted me to have an adventure,” I say. It’s not a lie, exactly. He doesn’t need to know how last-minute this trip really is. For all he knows, this trip was planned out months in advance. Some kind of cultural exchange. Transplant the East Coast girl into wild Wyoming and see how it takes.

“Your parents wanted you to have an adventure?”

“Are you pretty much going to repeat what I say?”

“Am I pretty much—oh no. You’re right. I’m totally doing it.” We both start laughing.

“Shhhh!” Across the way, the librarian has a finger to her lips and a scolding look on her face.

“Don’t worry about her,” Tyler says. “Stephanie’s harmless.”

“You sure?” If you ask me, she sort of looks like she wants to kick us out of here. I know that look, even if I’m not usually the one who gets it.

“I practically live here.” He must see the look on my face as I try to figure out what that means. “Practically. Not literally. And not the fake ‘literally’ that people use all the time. Anyway, I do have a home. Oh my gosh, you need to get around Wyoming more. We’re not all hicks, you know. Well, okay, some of us are.”

I have a feeling this boy would just keep on talking whether I was here or not. He and Kennedy could have a contest. “I don’t think that,” I say.

“Good.”

My phone buzzes with a text from Sadie. We’re done. Where are you? How did an hour and a half go by so fast? I stand on my tippy toes so I can see the library entrance, and sure enough, she’s there, waiting for me.

“Crap,” I say, my finger still holding the place in my book. “I can’t check it out. I don’t have a card yet.”

“You can use mine.”

“Really?”

Tyler flashes me a thumbs-up. “You’ll return it in three weeks, right? You’ve already read a third of