Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Nico
I stare at the message for a few minutes, my stomach in knots. Then I hit the power button to turn off the screen on my phone, toss it onto the bed next to me, and cover my face with my hands.
How the fucking hell am I supposed to come up with five hundred dollars after only a week of work when I’m making minimum wage?
I’m no math genius like Alex, but I’m not an idiot either, and I’m pretty sure after taxes, my first paycheck won’t even be that much.
And since I only have about forty bucks in my checking account right now, I have no idea how I’ll get enough money.
I kinda need that forty bucks anyway. I’ve been washing my only set of work clothes every night so far this week, hoping my boss doesn’t realize I’m wearing the same polo shirt and slacks every day.
Plus I need to put gas in my car. And apparently pay my cell phone bill and my car insurance.
But honestly, the financial shit isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is this complete one eighty she’s doing, treating me like a villain.
Fuck.
I didn’t take a swing at him first. I was fucking thirteen years old. And he was not always nice to me. He was never nice to me. I’m glad that asshole went to jail and lost his job. He deserved that.
But it’s that—the fact that she’s letting herself believe him, believe his lies and whatever else he’s telling her or she’s making up on her own, turning me into this awful person—that’s what really hurts the most.
I ignored her as long as I could, still pretending. Pretending she wasn’t actually texting me those baseless accusations. Pretending she wasn’t being someone completely different. I still haven’t shown any of those texts to Alex, even.
But I couldn’t ignore her anymore after her message this morning. I can’t let her report my car as stolen. I can’t have it taken away, and I don’t want any trouble with the police.
I roll over onto my stomach with a groan and bury my head into the pillow.
And that doesn’t even make me happy because the pillow doesn’t smell like Alex. It’s not his.
Tuesday night, I moved into the downstairs bedroom—the one he cleaned up and prepped for his cousins, who are showing up tomorrow evening.
It was dumb, kinda—to have me move down here for just a few days, since I’ll be moving back up into his room tomorrow and staying up there for the weekend.
But we got into yet another argument over who would be sleeping in his bed, and I just couldn’t convince him that I’d be okay sleeping on the floor.
So rather than make him sleep on the floor again—which just feels wrong because it’s his room—I sort of . . . kicked myself out.
Of course, I haven’t slept well at all the last couple of nights, either, like my body just knows he’s not nearby. And being tired certainly hasn’t helped me deal with all this added stress of my mom’s texts.
I should probably share them with him. He’s smart. Maybe he can help me come up with a way to get the extra money without having to basically hand over my entire paycheck or beg her to give me more time.
I turn over and sit up, intending to get dressed and maybe force myself to eat something before work. Instead, my eyes land on my backpack, which I shoved down to the corner of the bed last night.
Without thinking, I reach down and grab it, yanking it up to the head of the bed with me. Then I unzip the back compartment, pull out my sketchbook and pencils, and flip to one of the few clean pages left in the book.
I’m not an artist. Not really, anyway. And I don’t even want to be one.
The thought of ever sharing my drawings with anyone actually makes me feel sick.
But sketching does help calm me sometimes, especially when I’m just too in my head and can’t seem to get myself out.
I close my eyes, trying to pull up an image of something soothing, like .
. . like Alex’s hand on my back, comforting me when we were together in my car on Monday morning.
I can still feel it, and I try to channel that feeling as I start to sketch, first a rough outline and then adding more and more detail.
That freckle he’s got right next to his knuckle on his right hand.
The wrinkles in my shirt as his hand moves slowly, gently across my back.
The softness of it all.
A tear falls down my cheek, and I hate it. I hate it so much that I reach up and swipe it away, but another comes anyway. Why the hell is this making me cry? And what time is it, anyway? Am I going to be late for work now?
I flip over my cell phone and glance at the screen as the time lights up. 8:03 a.m.
Dammit.
I groan, slamming the sketchbook closed.
Then I shove it under the pillow, along with my pencil, drag myself out of bed, grab my rewashed clothes from the laundry basket Alex’s mom is letting me use, and trudge off to the bathroom to get ready for work.
All that anxiety I thought I banished with my sketching has returned as this equally uncomfortable, slowly simmering anger, and I’m not even really sure why.
“So, the thing that most people probably don’t know about these book drives is that we don’t actually keep most of the books.
” Sharon pushes a laptop over in front of me and hits the power button.
She continues talking while the computer boots up, her hands much too animated for my liking, though I manage not to flinch away.
“There will be a ton of duplicates, a bunch of books in poor condition or with pages ripped out or writing inside. Then a bunch of books we just don’t expect will ever get checked out. ”
I scoot my chair over a little to give her room as she inputs a password into the computer and then clicks a few buttons to open up a spreadsheet.
“We’ll probably only keep about ten percent of the books, honestly,” she admits.
“For the rest, we’ve been lucky to partner with a bookstore owner in Omaha the last couple of years.
He buys and resells all the books we don’t keep.
That’s why this fundraiser and all these donated books are really important; even if the books themselves don’t make it to the shelves, the library ends up with a lot of money. ”
I nod tightly and look up across the room at the stacks and stacks of boxes lining the far wall. There are probably thousands of books in those boxes. They’ll be my job for the next however-long it takes.
I clear my throat. “So, how do I decide which ones to keep?” It seems like a decent-enough question. But Sharon gives me a look that isn’t really inviting, and I shrink back into my seat as she continues without directly answering me.
“What you need to do first is sort all of the books. Enter every one into this spreadsheet, regardless of whether it’s a duplicate or it’s obviously trash,” she says.
I’m shaking, though I don’t know why. It’s been this way all morning. Off and on—shaking and anger and even this random stabbing headache that comes and goes. I clench my jaw and try not to outwardly react or show her how much I’m struggling.
She goes over all of the information I have to enter into the spreadsheet.
Then, after she’s repeated that information twice, she explains the sorting process she wants me to follow.
I write down a few notes as she talks, if only to give myself something to focus on, and then she leaves me so I can get started.
Despite the overwhelming volume of books for me to sort, I find myself actually enjoying the work.
It’s tedious, yeah, but I get into a sort of rhythm with it, and it passes the time.
More importantly, I have to keep myself engaged with the work, and there’s not really any room for my mind to wander to the dark place it wants to go.
In fact, I don’t even realize how much time has passed until there’s a quiet knock at the door.
My eyes dart up, and I see Caitlin, the library assistant, standing in the doorway.
She smiles at me as she tucks a short lock of her jet-black hair behind her ear, and then she scans the piles of books I’ve unboxed and begun to sort.
When her eyes meet mine again, she laughs lightly and shakes her head.
“I’m really not at all jealous you’ve got this job this year rather than me.
Although I can’t say my group of summer school students is much better,” Caitlin jokes easily, stepping into the room.
She stops at the end of the table where I’m working, still a good few feet away, and picks up one of the books I just added to the pile for nonfiction books in good condition.
As always, my entire body tenses up at her closeness.
Hell, even my chest feels tight, and it’s suddenly difficult to breathe.
It fucking sucks, and I hate it, especially now.
I swallow hard, trying to push the feeling away, because I need to.
Caitlin is my work colleague, even if this job is only for the summer, and the last thing I need is to do something idiotic enough that she complains about me to Sharon.
I need to keep this job. Now more than ever.
But my stomach twists up into a knot anyway, and I shrink down into my chair. I can’t stop it, and I can’t hide it. Fucking anxiety.
Unlike Sharon, Caitlin seems to notice my discomfort. She purses her lips and tilts her head slightly, and then she smiles again, although it’s maybe a bit more reserved than her first smile.
“Um, I came in to tell you it’s time for your lunch break, actually.
Sharon says maybe you lost track of the time?
And I don’t know if you brought lunch or anything, but several of the kids didn’t show up today, so we’ve got extra sandwiches and bags of chips and stuff.
It’s all in the activity room. Feel free to grab whatever you want. ”