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

catch his crush Demetri getting into the snack line. Usually, Demetri is with a bunch of his friends, but right now he’s alone. Entirely and totally alone.

“Ty,” I whisper.

No reaction.

I poke him in the side and he yelps. “I was reading!”

“Yeah, I know, but maybe you should get a snack now.” I tip my head in the direction of the snack line.

“It’s not even lunchtime.”

I make my eyeballs go huge. Do I have to spell it out for him? Really? I thought he was smarter than this. I clear my throat and again tip my head toward Demetri.

Ty suddenly stiffens. I know what he’s about to say next because I used to be the exact same way until someone forced me out of my shell. Someone. I reach into my bag for my wallet. “If you don’t, I will.”

“You will what?”

“Have a little chat with him. I might have to tell him how I’m new in town and about my great new friend and how he’s been showing me around and I might maybe say something about—”

“Don’t!” Tyler pleads with me.

I pass my wallet from one hand to the other. “If you don’t get in line soon, I—”

“Let me put on a shirt first.” He scrambles for his button-down.

“I’m giving you ten seconds. One, two…”

By the time I get to ten, Tyler’s heading over there, still fiddling with the last button. Okay, he did glare at me first. But he’s doing it! That’s the first step.

He gets into line behind Demetri and at first he doesn’t say anything. But he must know I’m watching him because he turns around to check. I flash him a thumbs-up, and his face reddens, but he’s still there, so that counts for a lot, actually. And then Demetri turns around. They’re talking—not a ton, but a little—and the line is moving super slow because the teens who work the snack bar are terrible at their job and probably giving free food to their friends.

Eventually, two moms and their kids get in line behind Tyler, taking away my prime viewing angle. There’s no way I can go back to reading my buffalo book now.

Is this how it feels to be Kennedy? Putting things into motion. Being the instigator for once, instead of taking the back seat like I usually do. I feel strangely powerful.

Maybe it’s different when the things you put into motion aren’t so positive, though. Like that first night at Camp McSweeney. The feeling you’re left with then, it’s not butterflies in your stomach. More like a brick.

For a while I watch a group of girls gossiping right where the deep and shallow ends meet. Two of them are super close together, but the third is a little bit removed. But maybe that’s just how they’re standing. Maybe that’s just the moment I’m catching them in.

“I could kill you.” Tyler’s almost at our blanket, carrying a basket of fries. But his smile doesn’t exactly look deadly.

“How’d it go?” I grab a fry—crispy, hot, and salty.

“Okay,” he says, a blush creeping over his face.

“You talked to him, Ty! You talked to him and you didn’t die. What did he say? What did you say? I need a full recap.”

“Okay, so first he turned around. No, wait, maybe I said, ‘hi, Demetri’? I can’t remember. Anyway, so then…”

As he gives me the recap, Tyler’s smile is different than usual. Almost like he’s glowing from the inside. Was that how I looked after talking to Noah? That boost of confidence from doing the thing that scared me, Kennedy gave me that. I would have never done it without her egging me on.

“Why are they always eating more food than humanly possible?” I ask Tyler, for a moment looking up from the Becca box.

“That’s the magic of Gilmore.”

“But four Thanksgiving dinners! I mean, come on.”

“It’s called ‘wish fulfillment,’ Em. What are they supposed to do? Which invite could they really turn down?”

He has a point.

I set down my tweezers and join him on the couch. My fingers are shaky from all the painstaking work I’ve been doing on Becca’s box. It’s worth it, but it definitely requires plenty of breaks.

For the past couple of days I’ve been skimming through books by Tamora Pierce, one of Becca’s favorite authors, and writing down the best quotes about friendship. I typed them up on Delia’s laptop last night and printed them out in the teeniest-tiniest font that’s still readable by the bare eye. With the tweezers I’ve been layering them into the glass on the side of the box, after spreading a thin layer of glue. It’s tiring work, but I love how it looks.

Someone thumps down the stairs, and then Sadie peeks her head in. “Mail call,” she says, thunking a yellow padded envelope on the sofa.

Austin sent me a package? Of what?

“What is it?” Tyler asks.

But when I reach for it, I find that the package is covered in Kennedy’s manga drawings, with my name and address lettered in Lucy’s most perfect penmanship. How did they get this address? I never told them where in Wyoming I was going.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Tyler asks.

My hands tremble, except I’m not sure it’s from all that careful work with the tweezers.

“I’ll be right back,” I say before darting out of the den, the package in my hands. I head down the hall for my bedroom and shove it in my suitcase, in the darkest corner of the closet. I’m not ready to open it and see what’s inside.

I have to fix things with Becca first. Once that’s done, I can figure out what to do about Kennedy and Lucy.

I suck in a deep breath and slowly let it out before returning to the den. I just want to watch Lorelai and Rory go to their last two Thanksgiving dinners and not have to think about what happened back at home. But the show is paused, and when I ask Tyler to unpause it, all he does is