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

how kind he was earlier not to pry about my brother. “Can I meet them sometime?”

“They work during the day. Grams at the grocery store, and Gramps at the mines.”

“Chris—Mr. Sadowski—he works there too,” I say, though inside, I’m wondering if both of Tyler’s parents are dead. How awful. How unfair.

Tyler takes one look at what I’ve done to my bike and laughs. “Okay, clearly you have never had to carry anything on a bike before.”

“True.”

He unwinds the plastic bags from the handles and secures them to the sides. “Much better. So, where to next?”

“Back to Delia’s?”

“To Delia’s!” He pumps his fist. “Okay, sorry, it’s really weird calling her anything other than Mrs. Sadowski when she used to be my teacher. How about this: Back to your place?”

“Back to my place.” Now I’m the one who feels weird, thinking of Delia’s house as my place.

By the time we’re back at Delia’s, the sky has clouded over, which finally makes the temperature somewhat bearable. We bring my bags of Goodwill treasures downstairs. Sadie and Delia are nowhere to be found. There’s a note on the kitchen table: Went out for a bit. Be back around 2 p.m. Help yourselves to anything for lunch. XO, D.

I grab a jar of salsa and a container of guacamole from the fridge, along with a new bag of tortilla chips.

Tyler peeks out the window. “Storm’s coming in.”

“It’s just cloudy,” I say.

“We don’t do cloudy in the summer. It’s either a storm or it’s hot as heck. Do you want to go up on the roof and watch?”

“Up on the roof?” Now I’m doing the repeating thing.

Turns out it’s not as dangerous as I would’ve thought. For one, Delia’s house isn’t nearly as tall as mine or Becca’s. And two, you can reach the roof pretty easily by climbing the back deck.

The shingles are still hot from the midday sun, but I lay a blanket across them like Tyler suggests. Just as I’m sitting down, my phone buzzes with a text from my mom. Having fun?

Tyler sees it too, and as I start typing a response, he says, “You better tell her I’m fun!”

“Telling her I had the worst day ever. With this awful boy Tyler who won’t leave me alone.”

Tyler sticks out his tongue at me. I do it back. I think I made a new friend today. Having lots of fun. Miss you.

For a second I feel the worst kind of guilt. Because it’s true, I am having fun today. When’s the last time someone stopped by my house three days in a row just to see if I could hang out? Never. Not even Becca. I don’t deserve Tyler. I’m not sure I deserve any of this.

I crack open the salsa and dip in a chip. And then all I can think about is the spiciness hitting my tongue and that we’re up on the roof with spicy salsa and I completely forgot drinks.

Mom writes back, So happy to hear this. Miss you lots.

Suddenly it occurs to me that even though Tyler won’t be able to meet Austin via FaceTime, I do have photos of him on my phone. “Do you want to see a picture of my brother?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I flip all the way back to last August. My parents had rented a house on the Cape for two weeks. The Grossmans came down for the weekend in the middle. I skip past the pictures of me and Becca and our epic sandcastle until I find one of Dad and Austin. Dad’s wearing his Celtics shirt. Austin’s flexing like a goof, and he’s got his Patriots hat on backward. My fingers leave a salty smear on my phone as I pass it off to Tyler. “That’s Austin.”

“He kind of looks like a young Christopher. You know, from Gilmore Girls?”

I shake my head—I’ve never seen Gilmore Girls, though I know Kennedy watched some of it with her moms.

“He’s cute in that preppy way. I mean, not that I—he’s too old for me. Ugh. Now I seem like a weirdo, creeping on your brother.” He shoves a few chips in his mouth. “Okay, but actually, he is. He’s really cute. I mean, not that you’re—ugh. I should not even be allowed to talk anymore. Shut up, Tyler. Shut up.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “You’re not the first person who’s ever said that.” I was right earlier, in the library. But it doesn’t seem like Tyler wants to make a fuss over it now, so I don’t say anything about it.

“I don’t even know why you want to hang out with me. Your family is beautiful. You get to travel all over the country like it’s no big deal. Twenty dollars is nothing to you. I haven’t even been on a plane yet! The farthest I’ve been is South Dakota. And not even Sioux Falls, just Rapid City.”

I can’t let him go even one second longer thinking that I’m on some higher tier than him, when really, I’m like a basement dweller on the good-human scale. “Tyler, stop.”

He’s halfway through a chip when I say it, so he just chews for a second while I try to figure out what to say next. So many confessions compete for the chance to come out. Actually, aside from you, I have no friends right now. Like, literally zero. I sold out my old best friend. I missed every sign of my brother’s addiction. And that adventure? My parents sent me away for the entire summer to stay with people I barely know. They have no clue who I really am or all of what went down this year. And if they knew the truth?

“He’s in rehab—Austin, I mean.” There it is. It’s out. I can almost feel something inside me lift, like my whole body is lighter from having said it out loud.

Licking tortilla chip dust off my fingers, I stare out into the distance. That’s what we came up here to do, right? Watch the storm roll in.

Far