33 McKenna #3
“Yeah, you did.” I pump a fist in the air because I know full well he wouldn’t return a high five.
“Now how about you respond to the drone-racing guy and tell him to find somebody else for his degenerate activities?”
Leo nods, and we work together on crafting the message. After he sends that one too, I let out a breath of relief. The last thing I want to see is Leo getting involved with tech lowlifes and finding himself anywhere near real trouble. He’s way too good for that.
I pay the small check, and Leo and I head out to the street, where the sky has now darkened.
“Okay, kid,” I say. “Have a good night.”
“Okay,” he says, and I turn to walk back toward my car. After a beat, I realize Leo’s walking right behind me.
“Didn’t you say you parked your bike on Overton? That’s down the hill.” I point in the direction behind him.
“I’m not going home yet. I’m going with you.”
“With me?” I repeat as I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Why?”
“I want to see where you live to see what’s wrong with your dorm.”
A weight drops in my stomach. I don’t want to lie to the kid, and I know that once he gets focused on something, he fixates.
I should have known he wouldn’t just drop it when I tried to redirect us earlier.
“It’s really not a good time for this, Leo.” I start walking again.
“Why not?” He’s huffing a little, trying to keep pace with me.
“Because it’s not, okay?” I don’t want the very last person who still respects me to know I’ve been living out of my car and
sleeping in public spaces, to know how royally fucked up a situation I’ve managed to get into. But I know how he is once he
gets stuck on a topic, and he’s not going to give it a rest until he gets to the bottom of this mystery.
“That’s not a reason,” he says, looking me right in the eye, and something about his gaze finally meeting mine, the quiet
resolve of it, somehow breaks me.
“Okay, fine. Fine, you want to know where I live?” I ask as we approach my car.
I unlock the doors and open up the trunk.
“I live here.” I point at my two duffels full of clothing and towels in the trunk.
“And I sleep there.” I motion to the backseat, where there are still a couple of messy blankets.
“Or I sleep in a lounge in one of the dorms. I move around to wherever I can. Are you satisfied? Is this what you wanted to know?”
Leo’s looking at me with shock on his face, and I feel terrible that I’m upsetting him, but for some reason I can’t rein myself
in.
“But why would you sleep in your car?”
“Because I don’t have a home, Leo. Because I lost my scholarship and I don’t have enough money to pay for housing if I also
want to pay for my tuition and my grandmother’s medical care, which she needs a lot more than I need a comfortable bed.”
“But why would you choose going to school over having a place to live?”
It’s a reasonable thing to ask, and when I think about the answer, I feel a little calmer, centered even. Like I’m motivated
and choosing to sacrifice for a reason that’s important to me.
“You know how you want to be a teacher?” I ask.
He nods.
“Once you decided it, you wanted it so much, right?”
He nods again.
“That’s how I feel about nursing. Except I’ve wanted it since I was five years old, ever since I saw the way those ladies took care of my mom when she was sick with cancer.
I told my mother that no matter what, I was going to become a nurse, and I was going to help patients like her feel better, and I was going to keep their daughters from growing up without their moms. I chose this.
” My feeling of empowerment keeps growing.
“I didn’t want to wait. I’m already halfway to my degree, and my grades are still good.
Once I graduate, I’ll be able to get a job, and then a place to live.
I will be okay. And in the meantime, I will get through this.
And who knows?” I stare off into the distance behind my car and envision the same scenario I’ve been dreaming of more and more frequently.
“Maybe one of these days they’ll find out who really vandalized the pool, and I’ll be exonerated, maybe even get my scholarship back. ”
“What pool?”
Oh, crap.
I forgot Leo doesn’t know what really happened after the swim lessons got canceled. I suppose it’s time to fill him in.
I tell him all of it, how I got fired, how I reacted inappropriately in so many ways, losing my spot on the team, losing my
friends, losing my housing, and how nobody believes I wasn’t the one who poured all those toxic substances into the pool,
even though it’s something I would never ever do.
When I finish, he asks, “But why don’t they just check the security cameras from the country club?”
“There was a bad storm earlier that night. It wiped out the power to the cameras, so they have no proof of who was really
there.”
“Is that all you’d need? Proof of who was there that night?” He has a hopeful look in his eye that I don’t understand.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t exist, so . . .” I raise my hands like that’s that.
“McKenna,” Leo says, looking back in the direction we came from. “I can get you proof.”