Drowning Is Inevitable by Shalanda Stanley

Author:Shalanda Stanley
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-553-50828-4
Publisher: Random House Children's
Published: 2015-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

Sitting on her couch, Beth Hunter and I stared at each other. Whenever she moved or shifted in her seat, it was alarming at first, because all my life she’d been sitting still in photos. It seemed like any minute now, my mom might walk out of the kitchen and sit down to join us.

I decided Beth hadn’t changed all that much since the pictures in my mom’s bedroom were taken. Her hair was shorter and not as shiny but still blond. Her face basically the same only slightly more lined.

“Would you like something to drink? I have iced tea,” she said.

“No, thank you,” I said. I wondered if I sounded like Lillian to her, too.

“What brings you here?” she asked. She looked nervous.

I wanted to say, “Dead moms, dead dads, and old letters,” but instead said, “I’m in trouble.” I hadn’t planned on blurting it out like that, but there it was.

“I know,” she said. “You’re all over the news. The police know you’re in New Orleans. They found your friend’s truck.”

“Jamie—” I stopped myself, terrified to spill my secrets to someone I might not be able to trust. “He’s my best friend,” I continued. “He didn’t … he’s not …” I exhaled loudly. “He’s good. It’s not murder. Not really. There are things no one knows.”

Beth put her hands on mine. “I know Tom Benton. Well, I knew him.” She didn’t say anything else, but her look said she knew exactly what kind of man he’d become. “But Olivia, you’re an accessory after the fact. Do you realize how much trouble you’re in?”

“That’s why we’ve got to get away. Jamie can’t go back home, ever, and I can’t leave him. I won’t. We need help. I’m sorry to just show up here, but we don’t have a lot of options. You and my mom were friends, best friends, so I thought maybe you’d help me. It’s not safe where we’re staying. We’re not safe.”

Beth stood and went to her window. Looking out of it, she said, “How can I help you? What do you need?”

I felt bad, but I blurted it out. “Money. My friend Maggie thinks her mom might know someone who can get us new passports, but we’ll have to pay him. I don’t even know how much he’ll charge, but we don’t have anything. And if we can just spend a night or two here, just enough time to make a plan.”

Silenced followed, and I shifted in my seat.

“Wait here,” she said.

She disappeared down the hall. I worried she was calling the police. There was a calendar pinned to the wall next to her desk. We’d been gone three days. It had taken three days for life to flop on its head and become unrecognizable. Time continued to move forward in its day-to-day way, one day closer to whatever was next for Jamie and me—one day closer to my eighteenth birthday, I realized.

Beth returned to the living room, her arms full of a huge photo album.

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