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

my boxes. “So long as you’re careful and don’t cut yourself,” she’d said with a smile. “I mean it. No trips to the ER for your art, please.”

Mom’s birthday was in January, and I figured I could make a box for her, though I still hadn’t decided what exactly would go in it besides the mosaic background I’d been imagining, made out of the fragmented glass.

Downstairs, I could hear the front door close. Austin had just come home.

I peeked my head out the door as he passed my room.

Austin jumped. “You scared the crap out of me, Em. Why are you still up? It’s one in the morning.”

Was it really that late? “I was working on a box.” I followed him into his room. He grabbed a sweatshirt that had been dumped on his desk and kicked off his sneakers. The air around him smelled funny, sort of like a skunk.

“What do you think this is, a sleepover?” He laughed, settling down on his bed and nestling his head into a pile of pillows. Mom didn’t make either of our beds anymore—that was up to us after third grade—which meant Austin’s bed was never, ever made unless his girlfriend, Savannah, was coming over.

“I’ll leave in a minute.” I sat down at the edge of his bed. “Was it fun?”

“Hmmm. Are parties fun? Let’s see…”

“Stop it!” I giggled. “I’ve never been to a high school party. Remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But someday you will.”

“I don’t know,” I said. I couldn’t imagine me or Becca ever going to one of those parties Austin goes to on the weekends, when his friends’ parents are out of town.

“You just need to find your people,” he said, his head settling further into the pillows. From that angle, it looked like he had three chins. No, maybe four?

“My people?” I asked as Austin’s eyes started to close.

His eyelids fluttered open and he shifted upright. “Yeah, Em. Your people. You know, most of my friends now, I didn’t know them in elementary school. God, in elementary school I was friends with Brian Fitzgibbons! Ol’ Fitzy! It takes a while to find your true friends. The ones who really get you. Your herd.” I glanced up at the Modest Mouse poster above Austin’s bed, the one with the ginormous buffalo. “Some people don’t find them till college, which must suck, but a lot of people, they find them in middle school or high school. There’s tons of people out there, Em. You just gotta look.”

In my head, all I could see was Becca wrinkling her nose at the idea of art club. But what if Austin was right? What if that was where I met my people? Found my herd. To be fair, my brother, a high school junior, had a whole lot more expertise when it came to making friends than Becca or I ever did. Maybe he was right.

“Do you think…?”

“I do.”

“No!” I laughed. “I wasn’t done asking the question—”

“Well, speed it up, Em. It’s one in the morning and some of us need our beauty rest.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you think I should join the art club?”

“How are you not already in art club, Em?”

I shrugged. “Becca wasn’t into it.…”

“Oh, I’m sorry, since when does Becca call all the shots?”

I had no answer for him.

“Em, you’ve got to do some stuff without Becca sometimes! No shade to Becca, but just because she doesn’t want to do something doesn’t mean you can’t. What if the artsy weirdos are your people? Spoiler alert: they probably are. I mean, you’re up in the middle of the night doing art for fun! Why should you have to miss out on that because it’s not Becca’s jam? You’re your own person, Em. Promise.” He lay back down on his bed and mumbled, “I think that was a pretty good motivational speech.”

“You know I can hear you, right?”

“It’s been a long night. The border between thoughts and speech is a little hazy.” He closed his eyes again, and I had a feeling this time it was for good.

“Don’t fall asleep in your clothes.”

“Okay, Mom.” His eyes stayed closed. His chest rose and fell with each breath, and I started to wonder if he might really fall asleep like that.

“Hey, Austin?”

“Yeah,” he murmured.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, Em.”

I slid off his bed and tiptoed out of the room, shutting off the overhead light on my way out.

“Night, Austin,” I whispered, closing his door gently behind me.

CHAPTER THREE

You’re your own person, Em. Promise. My brother’s words echoed in my head the following Tuesday as I hung around my locker a few extra minutes before going upstairs to the art room.

I didn’t know why I was nervous. It wasn’t like Ms. Patel was scary. And in any case, no matter how awkward it was to go to a club where I didn’t know a soul, at least I was going to get a homemade brownie out of it.

Right. A brownie! Mmm. There was my motivation.

When I got upstairs, the early-afternoon light was streaming through the big windows of the art room. The eighth graders, I think, had made stained glass, and the very best ones—and okay, maybe some of the very worst, too—were hung over the window so that fragments of blue and red and green light glittered onto the tables below.

“So glad you decided to come.” Ms. Patel turned from the easel where she was working on a painting in all black and white. It was abstract, and still at an early stage, so I couldn’t tell what she was going for. “Brownies, as promised, are out on the table. I hope you like double chocolate chip.”

“Who doesn’t?” I replied.

“Exactly,” she said. “Oh, and once the bell rings for the day, I am done being Ms. Patel. Call me Nisha, okay?”

I was pretty sure I could never call a teacher by a first name even if I tried, but I said, “Sure,” anyway, and made my way over to the