Page 10 of Crashing Waves


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Whatever boost my ego had just experienced from knowing a girl liked me wilted on the spot. I couldn’t go anywhere. I didn’t go anywhere ever, not anymore. Not since I had started cooking dinner every night last year. Not even the library. Sometimes, on the weekends, I managed to sneak over to Ricky’s house before walking to the grocery store, but apart from that …

“I can’t,” I said quickly with a shake of my head.

Ricky eyed me with suspicion. We were good friends. He was my onlyrealfriend, outside of the half-dozen kids who would call my name and wave before or after class. We ate lunch together every day, shared a class or two every year since we had been fourteen, hung out on the rare occasion. Sometimes, I forgot all that time spent together was enough for him toknowme. And hedid. He paid attention—he always had. He might not be the smartest guy—he was failing Science and Math miserably—but he was observant.

“Why not?” he asked, unwrapping his sandwich while keeping his eyes on me.

“Because I can’t. I have to cook dinner.”

“You can’t run home and tell your mom you wanna go out tonight?”

I almost laughed. My mom cared about my social life even less than she cared if Dad slapped me around—and she didn’t careat allabout that.

“No,” I said.

Ricky stared at me, almost disbelievingly, for a moment longer. Then he turned away and lifted hissandwich to his mouth. “All right,” he said, dropping the topic more easily than I’d thought he would. “Maybe another day.”

***

He asked again the next week and then the next.

Each time, I said no.

I told him the truth—that I had to cook dinner. It was hard enough, balancing my chores and homework to the extent of Dad’s minimal satisfaction. I didn’t have the freedom to sneak in a date with a girl, and I couldn’t begin to imagine how much it would anger my father if he found out.

To my relief, Ricky settled for a no when he asked those first couple of times. A week went by without him asking at all, and I thought, with triumph, that maybe he’d given up.

But then, one day, he caught up to me on my walk home. I panicked internally. Ricky never walked with me in this direction, and even though my father wouldn’t be out of work for another couple of hours, I worried that he’d see me. Worried he’d beat me for having afriend.

“What do you want?” I asked hurriedly, hoping to brush him off before I neared my block.

He narrowed his eyes at my harsh tone. “What the heck is going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, bullshit, Max. You never come over anymore. You never wanna hang out with Molly and Laura. You don’t even go to the library now.”

My jaw shifted and tensed. “I wasn’t aware you were keeping tabs on me.”

“Hard not to when your best friend doesn’t wanna spend time with you.”

Best friend?I’m his best friend?A lump so big swelled in my throat as I trained my gaze on the sidewalk beneath my feet. I never cried, not about anything, and I certainly wasn’t going to cry about this. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard to fight back the tears.

“I’m just busy,” I finally muttered when I was sure I wouldn’t sound choked up.

“With what?”

I blinked rapidly. The wave of emotions was back with a vengeance, and now it was tainted with a bit of panic. Oh my God, my life was becoming such a mess of lies and excuses to protect my little slivers of self-preservation from my father. Bringing someone else into the mix would make things even more complicated. Why couldn’t he just shut up and go away?

“Homework.”

“It’s Friday. We don’t have homework.”

“But I have to study.”

He was staring at me with something close to anger now. “You’re full of shit.”

“No, I’m not.”