Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow

Author:Bethany C. Morrow [Morrow, Bethany C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-02-08T03:00:00+00:00

IX

I never take that walk with Tariq. Everyone understands when I beg off to the bedroom to rest while they’re playing a card game a couple of hours after dinner. Cherish is back to her old self, by all accounts, and is laughing and conspiring with her mom when I slide her phone off the kitchen island and into the front of my shorts.

Behind the bedroom door, I unlock the device by swiping my finger in the pattern I’ve watched her perform a million times. She’s never changed it, and she’s never made any attempt to keep me or anyone else from figuring it out. It’s not horribly difficult anyway. The fact that the pattern starts off-center probably seemed unlikely enough for Cherish. No further security measures required.

I’m not betraying her confidence. We hand each other our phones all the time, swap devices to read texts and tweets and posts, and sometimes reply from the wrong one by accident. That’s just part of being as close as we are. The only reason I need it now is because I don’t have Kelly’s phone number. Obviously. And I need to find out if he did something to my boyfriend. If whatever he did has something to do with Cherish’s uncharacteristic boldness.

I’ll be able to tell immediately, whether Kelly lies or not. I just need to get him face-to-face.

Can I see you? I text him from Cherish’s phone.

I’m surprised to see that the last conversation between them is from before the night of the boys’ fight.

She really hasn’t spoken to him since then.

“That’s why you’re so upset,” I tell her, even though she’s not in earshot. It didn’t have anything to do with me, or something she’s “always noticed” I’m doing. She’s heartbroken and lashing out at the one person it’s safe to push away. Because she knows I’m not going anywhere.

He’s a lovesick pup. His response is immediate.

For real?! Of course, babe, thank God. Just tell me when and where.

I try to think of where they might have snuck off to before, if they have. I could scroll up and try to quickly find out, but I don’t know how much longer I can have her phone without being noticed. And anyway, I know Cherish. If she’s ever snuck out to see Kelly, she wouldn’t go far. She’d be timid, even though no one can tell that about her but me. And Kelly would be used to risk, so it wouldn’t bother him to come to her.

Somewhere on the Whitman property, then, far enough from the house to feel private, but close enough that she never really left home.

Gazebo. I text him. Late.

And then I delete the messages I’ve sent, and his replies, and I lock the device to sneak it back downstairs.

Toward the edge of the Whitmans’ property, their private park becomes a rolling hill that naturally bestows both whimsy and privacy from the twelfth hole of the golf course it overlooks. There’s a gazebo, with a lattice enclosure that stands waist-high, and simple, curved benches inside, and the structure marks the end of the line.

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