The Waiting Sky by Lara Zielin

Author:Lara Zielin [Zielin, Lara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2012-08-01T22:00:00+00:00

16

I smooth down my hair as best I can and grab my room key. Just as I’m ready to head to the Pig & Spit, my phone buzzes. I look at the caller ID: Cat.

It’s funny how we used to talk on the phone every day, but now a phone call from her feels like this ginormously huge deal. I take a deep breath. On the third ring, I hit Talk.

“Hey, Cat.”

“Hey,” she says, her voice as even as mine. “I wanted to call and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m great,” I say. “Really good. You?”

“I’m fine.” I can practically see her sprawled on her pink comforter, magazines spread around her in glossy, overlapping waves. I miss her so much in that moment, my chest tightens. “Are you guys, uh, seeing many storms?”

I can hear how hard she’s trying to make conversation. “Actually, we are,” I say, working to give her more than two-word answers, since she did make the effort to call. “Right now, we’ve stopped in this town called Patchy Falls to help them clean up after a twister.”

“Really? That sounds pretty cool.”

“It’s—yeah, I guess it is. There’s this other chase team, the Twister Blisters, and they’re here too. They have Weather Network cameras following them around all the time, and when we come into contact with the Blisters, we sometimes wind up getting filmed.”

“Are you going to be on TV?” Cat asks, sounding excited.

“I don’t know. My brother probably will be. And definitely this guy named Victor. He’s on our team, but secretly storms wig him out.”

“No way. How can you be a chaser and not love storms?”

“I know, right?” I say, my words coming more quickly now. “And you know what this guy did? After the tornado hit Patchy Falls, we were trying to help people, but Victor was so scared of another storm rolling in that he left this one injured woman. He just, like, ran away from her.”

“For real?”

“Totally for real.”

“I just can’t imagine,” Cat says, “why someone would do that. It sounds like he needs some serious help. I mean, he’s putting people in danger, you know? Because he can’t face . . .”

Cat trails off and I suddenly realize she’s afraid to go on, afraid of how much the Victor situation sounds like my situation. Or my situation as Cat sees it, anyway.

I swallow. No way am I like Victor.

“I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did,” Cat says finally. “I wasn’t calling to bring anything up, I was only calling to see how you were. Really. And to tell you in person that I’m proud of you for going down to live with your brother for the summer. I know it was hard.”

I don’t tell her how my brother wants me to stay with him permanently. I don’t tell her how he wants me to go to Al-Anon too. But I do tell her at least part of the truth. “I’m pretty confused,” I admit. “About all this. About what I’m supposed to do to help my mom.

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