Accomplice by Eireann Corrigan Page A

everyone really.”
    The truth is, I didn’t know what was going on with Chloe and Dean. He started as a project we worked on together. We’d buy tiny toys out of gum ball machines and glue poems out of her dad’s New Yorker magazines onto cards. We’d check the library. But after a while, after we’d left the pieces of Chloe’s picture and Deanstarted writing back, Chloe stopped wanting to do those things together. Things shifted ever so slightly. When we saw Dean, he lowered his hood and looked straight at Chloe. At first he blushed and looked away. Then he stopped blushing. Then he stopped looking away.
    I’d ask her, and Chloe would shrug. But she stopped calling him Stuttering Dean. And once in a while, I’d be waiting for her to pick up the phone for an hour or two. Or she’d get a text message and not read it out loud to me. But I didn’t know that it was Dean.
    We had talked about what it would be like to have boyfriends. We would go on double dates and be in each other’s weddings. And in junior high, when parties went from Chuck E. Cheese to spin the bottle, we’d pooled anything we heard or learned. What felt good. What felt gross. It’s not like it was raining men in Colt River, though. The same guys who pulled up Chloe’s skirt in the days of buckteeth and Dorothy dresses were the ones trying to look down her shirt now. Different reasons maybe, but they were still the same absolute voids. We went to the prom to dress up and let some dicksmack pin a flower to our dress and then we danced in a circle with other girls. Just like most people in our class.
    There were a few couples at school, but they were generally football players and the girls on the dance team. There was Ashley Morecraft and Rayburn Whittier, but they were pretty much married. And that had more to dowith the crap going on at Ashley’s house and the fact that Rayburn’s mom let her sleep over. Even on weeknights. They were a couple.
    I had to believe that if Chloe was serious about him, she would have told me about it. Dean was just like any of the other guys who fumbled around and, yes, stuttered and stammered when they stood next to her.
    Plenty of times, guys fell for Chloe and tried to use me as a net. They talked to me first, but the whole time I could feel them leaning toward Chloe. Dean wasn’t just kind to me so that she’d notice. He made me laugh. If Chloe and her family had stayed in the city and I grew up in Colt River on my own, I would have become friends with Dean West.
    If we were actually friends, though, independent from Chloe, Dean and I would have been talking more over the past few days. Or even just not talking and taking some comfort in sticking close to each other. There wasn’t anyone I could afford to stick close to right now. I had to watch what I said. I had to be able to get over to my grandmother’s house on my own. Even up in my room, lying on my bed, I tried to position myself so that I wasn’t facing the Caffrey house. I didn’t want to face its windows, let alone anyone else’s eyes.
    Dad called up to let me know dinner was on the table, but I pretended to be asleep and didn’t open my door. Alittle while later, my mother brought up a plate fixed with food, which meant I wasn’t in trouble.
    “I didn’t mean to snap,” she said while she made this big production of arranging a place for me to eat at my desk. “We’re just looking for answers.”
    “I don’t have answers.” My voice against the pillow sounded like a moan. I lifted my face but didn’t look at her. “Not about Dean.”
    My mom sat down on the bed. “I remember when your dad and I first got close—well, it was this big secret. I can’t even tell you why. You know—Nana and Granddad always loved him.”
    I did know. My father had worked summers on my granddad’s farm. My grandfather used to say in his booming voice, “Before he was my son-in-law, he was a son to me.” It was strange to imagine my mom keeping