Effortless With You by Lizzy Charles Page A

want to be the lame friend with a ten o’clock curfew. Will I ever achieve a status she is happy with?
    But then I think of Sally and wonder if I even want to.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE

     
     
    Justin’s white truck sputters up my driveway. His door flies open and I wave him back. No way am I letting him come in. I can’t let him infiltrate my life further. Who picks up people at the front door anyway? Normal people wait in the driveway. Somehow Justin stays on top of the social pyramid when he clearly doesn’t play by the rules. It pisses me off.
    “Good morning,” Justin says as I open the passenger door and shove my stuffed bag under the seat. Justin snickers. “I see someone decided to come prepared.”
    “Better than not.”
    “Like the other day?”
    “You could have given me more of a warning of what to expect.”
    Justin puts the car in reverse. “Hey, I offered you help. You didn’t want it.”
    “But you knew that would happen, didn’t you?”
    “I hoped not. I was banking on you listening to Alex.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “But you’re more stubborn than I thought.”
    I purse my lips. “I wasn’t stubborn. I was thirsty. You can survive for a month without food but only a few days without water.” He laughs at me. My fingers clench. “I’m serious.”
    He waves my comment away. “Well, despite your survival facts, Alex should have stopped you.”
    “To his credit, Alex tried. He did.”
    Justin shrugs and pulls onto the exit for the Cross-Town Highway.
    “We aren’t going back to the yellow house?”
    “Nope. We finished it yesterday. Starting a big project today, an association of homes. We’ll be based out there for a month or so.”
    “Where is out there?”
    “Minnetonka. About a fifty-minute drive.”
    Forty-six minutes to go.
    “Get comfortable.” Justin turns on the radio to some news station. The news is growing on me and it keeps Justin silent. He’s much more tolerable that way.
    I zone out, watching the people in the cars next to us, all rushing. A man passes us on the right talking on his Bluetooth, already working for the day. A woman applies lipstick and sings while driving a red minivan that looks like an opossum, hood slanted like a nose to the ground. Toys litter her backseat. She seems happy to be having the drive alone.
    Mom got rid of our minivan when I started on the high school basketball team. She called the van her “Tween Bus.” Filled with middle school girls, lip gloss, magazines, iPods, basketball bags, lotions, and ribbons, it earned its name. The van was old, with bench seats and no CD player, which is exactly why Mom bought it. She couldn’t handle our chatter and music. I guess I can’t blame her for that.
    My heart aches. I really miss those girls. I drifted away during freshman year. I didn’t want to have to answer their questions—they were too good at asking them. I stopped answering phone calls and stood them up for our basketball dates. Eventually, the calls stopped coming. Instead of talking on the phone, I sat alone in my room and cried. What did I expect, them to rescue me? No one could rescue me from that situation ... except for Marissa, and she did.
    No. I don’t need to feel lost today. What I need is confidence, dignity, and the ability to not fall flat on my face. I scroll through my iPod, skipping Marissa-made playlists and select Mozart. I crank the volume down, the perfect background track. He seems to fit the weather and general vibe of the day.
    I peek at Justin, who sits back relaxed, attentively listening to the newscast. I wouldn’t have pinned him as an NPR listener. He hasn’t shaved this morning so his extra-thick stubble highlights his square jaw. My stomach flips in a girly way, and I make myself focus on the windshield. Okay. So what? He's gorgeous but still a jerk. I shift my eyes toward the clock, thirty more minutes, and then close them to rest.
    NPR features two doctors and