That's Not My Name by Megan Lally

Author:Megan Lally
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

SIXTEEN

DREW

I wake up with a jolt and almost smack my head on the nightstand. Fragments of whatever dream I’d been having fade from my mind—rough dirt floors, fingernails scratching against the earth. A shiver raises all the hair on my arms, and I force myself to sit up.

A cord tangles around my arm. When I tug on it, my phone pops out from beneath the blankets. I blink at it, slowly scrubbing at my eyes until I remember the night before. I must’ve fallen asleep listening to the recordings.

I roll over to grab the end of the fast charger from the floor, hoping my dead battery will juice up enough to get through the day while I get ready. I set the phone on the nightstand and squint past it out the window. Sunlight streams through the glass. A lot of sunlight.

The clock on my nightstand says it’s almost twelve thirty.

Fuck. Dead phone means no alarm. I’m super late for school.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and swear. A lot.

I don’t know if there’s any point now, since my dads have probably gotten that automated, “Your child…Andrew Carter-Diaz…has been marked absent from school today” call from the attendance office. I also feel like total shit. My eyes hurt, my head hurts, my muscles hurt. All I want is to pop in my headphones and not move all fucking day.

But Roane’s face flashes in my mind. The good sheriff doesn’t give a shit about what I want. If he hears I’ve missed school, he’ll be knocking on my door to make sure I didn’t skip town.

I throw on a clean pair of jeans, a dark blue T-shirt, and my black “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” Beastie Boys hoodie, a Christmas present from Lola last year. The “no sleep” part seems fitting for today.

I move my phone to the outlet by the bathroom sink. It’s already up to fifteen percent. If I can get it to twenty-five before I leave, it might last until the end of the day, but I’ll have to charge it again if we’re going to listen to the rest of the recordings after school. I type in my passcode and all my missed calls and text messages flood in.

There’s a call and voicemail from each of my dads, asking why I’m not at school. I stick my toothbrush in my mouth and send them each a text saying I overslept and I’m getting ready now. I have similar messages from Max and Autumn. Max’s first message is from this morning, saying he’s outside my house, wondering if I still need a ride. Looks like he waited about fifteen minutes, and climbed up and tapped on my window, before he gave up and went to school.

Shit. I quickly type out an apology, with about a dozen head-smacking emojis, and almost immediately those three little dots appear on the screen.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.