Lock and Key(28)
Author: Sarah Dessen

He looked up at me. One of his big eyes was running, which seemed to be a constant condition. After a moment, he went back to what he was doing.

“You’re up,” I heard Cora say from behind me as she came in the patio door. “Let me guess. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Something like that,” I said.

She poured herself a cup of coffee, then walked over to the table. “Me,” she said with a sigh as she sat down, dropping a hand to pat Roscoe’s head, “I wanted a pool. Something we could swim in.”

I glanced up at her, then out at the backhoe, which was swinging down into the hole. “Ponds are nice, though,” I said. “You’ll have fish.”

She sighed. “So typical. He’s already won you over.”

I shrugged, turning a page. “I don’t take sides.”

I felt her look at me as I said this, her eyes staying on me as I scanned the movie listings. Then she picked up her mug, taking another big sip, before saying, “So. I think we need to talk about a few things.”

Just as she said this, the backhoe rattled to a stop, making everything suddenly seem very quiet. I folded the paper, pushing it aside. “Okay,” I said. “Go ahead.”

Cora looked down at her hands, twining her fingers through the handle of her cup. Then she raised her gaze, making a point of looking me straight in the eye as she said, “I think it’s safe to say that this . . . situation was unexpected for both of us. It’s going to take a bit of adjustment.”

I took another bite of cereal, then looked at Roscoe, who was lying at Cora’s feet now, his head propped up on his paws, legs spread out flat behind him like a frog. “Clearly,” I said.

“The most important things,” she continued, sitting back, “at least to Jamie and me, are to get you settled in here and at school. Routine is the first step to normalcy.”

“I’m not a toddler,” I told her. “I don’t need a schedule.”

“I’m just saying we should deal with one thing at a time,” she said. “Obviously, it won’t all run smoothly. But it’s important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.”

I raised my eyebrows. Maybe I was still in survival mode, but this sounded awfully touchy-feely to me, like a direct quote from some book like Handling Your Troubled Teen. Turned out, I wasn’t so far off.

“I also think,” Cora continued, “that we should set you up to see a therapist. You’re in a period of transition, and talking to someone can really—”

“No,” I said.

She looked up at me. “No?”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone,” I told her. “I’m fine.”

“Ruby,” she said. “This isn’t just me. Shayna at Poplar House really felt you would benefit from some discussion about your adjustment.”

“Shayna at Poplar House knew me for thirty-six hours,” I said. “She’s hardly an expert. And sitting around talking about the past isn’t going to change anything. There’s no point to it.”

Cora picked up her coffee cup, taking a sip. “Actually,” she said, her voice stiff, “some people find therapy to be very helpful.”

Some people, I thought, watching her as she took another slow sip. Right.

“All I’m saying,” I said, “is that you don’t need to go to a lot of trouble. Especially since this is temporary, and all.”

“Temporary?” she asked. “How do you mean?”

I shrugged. “I’m eighteen in a few months.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m a legal adult,” I told her. “I can live on my own.”

She sat back. “Ah, yes,” she said. “Because that was working out so well for you before.”

“Look,” I said as the backhoe started up again outside, startling Roscoe, who had nodded off, “you should be happy. You’ll only be stuck with me for a little while and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

For a moment, she just blinked at me. Then she said, “To go where? Back to that house? Or will you get your own apartment, Ruby, with all the money at your disposal?”

I felt my face flush. “You don’t—”

“Or maybe,” she continued, loudly and dramatically, as if there was an audience there to appreciate it, “you’ll just go and move back in with Mom, wherever she is. Because she probably has a great place with a cute guest room all set up and waiting for you. Is that your plan?”

The backhoe was rumbling again, scooping, digging deeper.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said to her. “Not a thing.”

“And whose fault is that?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, ready to answer this; it was a no-brainer, after all. Who had left and never returned? Stopped calling, stopped caring? Managed to forget, once she was free and past it, the life that she’d left behind, the one I’d still been living? But even as the words formed on my lips, I found myself staring at my sister, who was looking at me so defiantly that I found myself hesitating. Here, in the face of the one truth I knew by heart.

“Look,” I said, taking another bite, “all I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to turn your whole life upside down. Or Jamie’s, either. Go on as you were. It’s not like I’m a baby you suddenly have to raise or something.”

Her expression changed, the flat, angry look giving way to something else, something not exactly softer, but more distant. Like she was backing away, even while staying in the same place. She looked down at her coffee cup, then cleared her throat. “Right,” she said curtly. “Of course not.”

She pushed her chair up, getting to her feet, and I watched her walk to the coffeemaker and pour herself another cup. A moment later, with her back still to me, she said, “You will need some new clothes, though. At least a few things.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at my jeans, which I’d washed twice in three days, and the faded T-shirt I’d worn my last day at Jackson. “I’m okay.”

Cora picked up her purse. “I’ve got an appointment this morning, and Jamie has to be here,” she said, taking out a few bills and bringing them over to me. “But you can walk to the new mall. There’s a greenway path. He can show you where it is.”

“You don’t have to—”