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

not my fault her brother got sent to rehab and her parents didn’t know what to do with her.”

“Sadie.” The spot between Delia’s eyebrows scrunches together, and this time her voice is sharp—stern, even.

I’m stuck. Glued to this chair in Wyoming, where I don’t belong in the first place. The thing is, I tried. I tried to take one for the team. I tried to fit in with this family. But Sadie’s right. They’re not my family. This isn’t my home. And I don’t belong here.

All I want is to disappear, to beam myself back to Massachusetts and somehow take Tyler with me.

As Delia and Chris lay into Sadie, I slip away. I’m padding down the carpeted stairs, heading for my room, when Tyler calls after me, “Emma, wait.”

Halfway down the stairs, I stop and sit, the tears spilling over, until Tyler’s warm body is next to me. There’s this long scar on his knee I don’t remember from before. When I look up from my hands, it’s all that I see. A reminder that I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me. Not as much as we think we do.

“She’s a jerk,” he says.

“She’s right.”

“She just said that ’cause she’s mad she can’t do what she wants. She doesn’t mean it.”

At my house, Mom and Dad would never have let me run off like this. One of them would’ve stayed with Austin and the other would’ve come after me. Usually Dad for me, Mom for Austin. But I guess that’s what they’re used to. Two parents, two kids. You do the math.

But Delia and Chris, they don’t know how to do it. The math is still new. Never mind that Sadie’s right. I’m not their kid. I’m just a guest.

“They did it, though. My mom and dad, they did send me away. I didn’t have a say in any of it.” I swipe beneath my runny nose with my hand. “And the worst part is I was kind of glad to leave. Not them and my brother—everything else.”

“It’s stressful.”

“No, not that.” I shake my head. “It’s—” I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that will change anything. But even in the darkness, outside it’s still Delia and Chris and Sadie, yelling at each other. And inside I’m still me. You can travel two thousand miles, but you can’t get away from yourself.

I open my eyes. What do I really have to lose at this point? “I ruined my best friend’s life.”

Tyler stares back at me blankly. “Back home?”

“Yeah,” I say. And bit by bit it falls out. How much I liked hanging out with Kennedy and Lucy. How I’d finally found friends that “got” me. And then how it all came crashing down. Because those friends who got me, they didn’t get something else. That even if Becca wasn’t my best friend anymore, she was still my friend. I would never, ever want to sell her out like that. I never meant to.

But by saying what I did to Kennedy and Lucy, I did. I’d planted the seed. And in the spring, it finally grew.

“The whole school knows. The whole school, Tyler.”

“I know what that’s like.” He runs his hands over his knees. Outside it’s gotten quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“Try going from being known as the only gay kid who’s out in the sixth grade to suddenly being the gay kid whose mom got sent to prison for making meth.”

Ouch. Suddenly, Becca being known as the sixth grader who still has a kitty blanket doesn’t sound so terrible. “That must be hard.”

“Well, it wasn’t easy.” He eyes me. “You didn’t even flinch when I said it. Did someone tell you?”

I can’t look Tyler in the eye.

“Sadie?”

“Only this morning.”

Tyler takes a deep breath. “I thought if I told you, you wouldn’t want to hang out with me anymore. That you’d be mad.”

“At you?” He shrugs, and I shake my head. “You’re not her.”

“I know.” Tyler shifts in the stairway. “On the phone today, she said she wanted me to come visit her. Her fortieth birthday’s coming up soon.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her I’d think about it.” He rests his head in his hands. “I don’t know, Em. I don’t know if I’m ready. Or what she’ll think if I come. I don’t want her to think it’s okay, that I’ve forgiven her already, because I haven’t. Do you know how long she’s locked up for?”

Sadie didn’t tell me, so I shake my head.

“Fifteen years.”

I don’t mean to gasp, but one sneaks out. That’s more years than I’ve been alive. So many I actually can’t imagine how long that would feel like.

“I mean, maybe if she’s on her best behavior she can get out a little early on parole, but by the time she’s out and free, I’ll be a grown-up.” His voice breaks on that last word. “God, how could she be so selfish?” Tyler’s hands are balled up into fists, and for a second I worry he’s going to punch a wall or something.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” He slowly uncurls his fingers. “I guess… I feel bad because I don’t think anyone else is visiting her besides Grams and Gramps, but I don’t really want to go yet. I’m not ready. I don’t know when I’ll ever be ready.”

“Emma? Tyler?” Delia comes to a stop at the top of the stairwell. “I’m so sorry, you two. I really—I’m ashamed of how we behaved tonight. All of us. You deserve better. I know the food’s gotten cold, but if you want, I’d love to take you out for some ice cream. What do you say?”

Tyler and I look at each other, and I can tell he wants to take her up on the offer.

“Sure,” I tell Delia.

Tyler and I take the back seat in Delia’s car. She’s quieter, not the normal chatty Delia. Is she embarrassed Tyler was there for all of that? One of her former students suddenly seeing her as a real person?

Finally she