Kyra, Just for Today by Sara Zarr

Author:Sara Zarr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

24

How come you weren’t at school today?

I’m surprised when I get the text from Lu while I’m making dinner. We don’t even meet at the rock every day now. Sometimes she’s there and sometimes she isn’t, and if she isn’t, I don’t wait. When I eat at her table, they’re always trying to make videos and Jaymison usually has some comment, like didn’t I wear those pants yesterday or how can I eat so much tuna or I should get my hair straightened.

Group getting canceled hasn’t helped.

I start to answer with the truth, that I helped Mom with work and then she dropped me off at home before going to her client in the city. Then I imagine Lu telling her mom or telling Steve or maybe even Till, and then my mom getting in trouble somehow.

Worst cramps ever, I answer.

She replies with a frowny face. She doesn’t even have her period yet that I know of, and I think she would have told me.

Will you be at school tomorrow? she asks.

Probably. Why?

You’ll find out if you come :)

I stare at the phone. Tell one safe person.

Can I come over after school tomorrow?

The pause is long enough to make me wish I hadn’t asked. I open the oven and poke one of the baking potatoes with a fork. Not done yet. Dinner is going to be simple: baked potatoes, broccoli, and cheese sauce from a jar. It was on special last time we went to the store. And I’m making a bunch of extra potatoes because they’re good for lunches or I can make twice-baked potatoes for another dinner this week.

Mom promised she’d be home to eat with me tonight.

Finally, Lu answers. Let me ask.

That’s as bad as a We’ll see from an adult.

I set the table and watch Mom’s dot on my phone.

In the morning, Mom sleeps through her alarm again, even though she was home early enough for us to have dinner and go grocery shopping after and still go to bed by ten-thirty. Again, I get her up. And I make coffee. And I make breakfast. And I pack her lunch and snacks and water. She takes me to school and we pull up exactly as the first bell rings. Lu is waiting at the rock.

“Right on time,” Mom says, but it’s with a lot less enthusiasm than she used to have.

With one leg out of the car, I turn around and blurt, “You should call Antonia.”

I didn’t plan to say it, and I immediately wish I hadn’t, because her whole upper body recoils and then her eyes go instantly from tired to hard. “Kyra? Live and let live, okay?”

It feels almost exactly the same as when she pushed me off her and all I can do is react like I did then and say, “Sorry,” and feel big and awkward and get out of the car.

As I’m walking up to the rock, I start crying. I try not to, but I can’t not. I listen for Mom to say, Wait! or, Keek! or, Babe! because she has to know how wrong what she said is.

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