The Sheriff by Sarah M. Anderson

Author:Sarah M. Anderson [Anderson, Sarah M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sarah M. Anderson
Published: 2018-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

That night, Summer discovered exactly how uncomfortable the couch was. There was no good place to put her hips that didn’t twist her back one way or the other. She finally decided laying on her side was the least-bad option.

Although Tim didn’t have curtains on the window on the front of his house, it was still pitch black in the room. The only light came from the clock on the stove across the room in the kitchen. This was another thing completely different from her apartment back in Minneapolis. There, she had five blackout curtains to keep the light from the street lamps and cars from leaking into her bedroom. Here, there wasn’t any of that. Tim’s house was set off from the other houses she’d seen between here and the clinic or the police station. It was an almost physical representation of what he’d been talking about in the bedroom—being a part of the community but not really.

“The recliner is less lumpy, if you want to trade,” Georgey said into the blackness.

Which, all things considered, was a downright thoughtful thing for a seventeen-year-old boy to say. “It’s fine,” she lied. After all, Georgey was a growing boy. Besides, she had no idea what Tim was going to have the kid doing tomorrow. He needed the rest.

But seeing as neither of them were asleep, Summer had some questions. “Georgey?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

She heard the boy groan. “I don’t know.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and stared in his general direction, even though she couldn’t see him. “Well, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

She heard the recliner shift and she imagined he was shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t know,” he repeated.

Boys. Either they thought they were going to be the next LeBron James or they didn’t have a clue. “We need a plan,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Why? Because if you don’t have a plan—a goal to work for—then you’re gonna wind up bumping along and that’s when you get into trouble. You do stupid stuff like trying to break into a medical clinic instead of looking at the big picture. If you have a job, you know you’ll be able to afford medicine for your grandma. Or your own car. Or your own apartment with a bed that doesn’t suck like this couch does.”

Georgey snorted. “I offered to trade,” he reminded her.

Although he couldn’t see it, she rolled her eyes. “That was literally the least important part of that entire statement.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said again, this time more firmly. “It’s hard to plan for the future when you don’t know how you’re gonna eat tomorrow—or tonight. It’s hard to work for a goal when you’re not sure if you’ll freeze to death because the electricity’s been cut off again.” His voice was louder and angrier. “It’s hard to think big picture when the small picture is so huge you’ll never get around it. Never.”

There was so much hopelessness in his voice—in his life.

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