Ashes to Ashes

REEVE’S TRUCK IS WAITING IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE on Monday morning. I run up to it and jump inside. “What are you doing here?” I ask him. He didn’t say anything about picking me up when we were on the phone last night.

“Driving my girl to school,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. “How’s your arm?” I pull up my sleeve. I’m purple from my wrist to my elbow. “Damn.”

“It looks worse than it feels,” I tell him. That’s a lie. It hurts like crazy. But it wasn’t Phantom’s fault. He’d never hurt me on purpose. Something spooked him.

I climb in and notice immediately that Reeve’s truck smells good. Like, super good. Reeve passes me a white Milky Morning bag, and I open it. It’s monkey bread and an organic apple juice. “Reeve! My favorite things!”

He grins a pleased kind of grin. “Where’s Nadia?”

“She’s getting a ride with Patrice,” I say.

“Is she still mad?” Reeve puts the truck in reverse and backs out of my driveway.

I nod. “The only time she spoke to me all weekend was when my dad said he was thinking about selling Phantom for what happened, and then we both freaked out and begged him not to.” I take a big bite of the monkey bread. “Thank you for my breakfast. Want some?” I dangle it under his nose, even though I know he’s going to say no.

He makes a face. “Too sweet.”

The closer we get to school, the more nervous I get about seeing everybody. I guess Reeve can tell, because he reaches over and takes my hand without saying anything.

We walk into school holding hands too. I try to let go, but Reeve just holds tighter. “No more hiding, Cho. That’s a good thing.”

Then I spot Ash coming down the hallway, and our eyes meet, and she just keeps walking like she doesn’t see me. And all I want to do is run and hide. Reeve notices, of course, but he doesn’t say anything about Ash. Instead he starts telling me this story about some soldier who had a dog in Afghanistan. He was a bomb-sniffing dog, and this guy was his trainer. Anyway, the story goes on and on and on, and it’s hard to follow at points. Basically Reeve just rambles while I get my books out of my locker. Magically, the story ends just as I reach my homeroom door.

“You did that to distract me,” I say.

“Did it work?”

I nod. It did.

“See you later, Cho.”

But for Reeve “later” turns out to mean as soon as the first-period bell rings. He’s there to escort me to class. And it happens like that, all day. I don’t know how he does it, but no matter where his classes are, he’s waiting outside my classroom door when the bell rings, ready to walk me to my next period. He doesn’t leave me alone once.

At lunch it’s just the two of us at the lunch table. I don’t know where the rest of our friends are. But Reeve makes me laugh, he makes me forget, and the day isn’t so bad. It’s kind of good.