Will's Story by Jaye Robin Brown Page A

home.
    Devon’s Jeep barrels around the curve in the road. I stand up, wiping the dust off my jean shorts. He parks and makes his way across our overgrown yard, guitar slung over his shoulder, foil-wrapped plate in his hand.
    â€œReady?” I say. “Mama’s working herself into a scare.”
    He peers past me into the house. “Hey, Mrs. Vaughn.”
    â€œHello, young’un.”
    I groan as Mama walks toward the screen door.
    â€œYou’ve got your cell phones? You won’t be out too late now, will you?” Mama has her hand on the door pull but doesn’t open it. “Devon, you look after Amber. Sometimes there are hikers from who knows where out on those trails.” She looks at the plate and his guitar. “What? No salamander hunting today? Y’all meeting somebody?”
    â€œNo, ma’am,” I lie. “Just us, going to go sing up on the overlook, and we may try and find us a hellbender or two.”
    That’s been our story. That we’re on the hunt for the elusive hellbender salamander. That we spend our long teenage hours in the woods, alone, digging under rocks, trying to find a slimy amphibian. The reality is we’re headed to the hiker barn. Again.
    A twinge of guilt burbles in my gut. If Mama knew what I was up to it’d destroy her. But the thing is, Mama only sees what she wants to see. Even when I come home, lips swollen, with stars in my eyes and a hickey on my neck, she’ll look at me all maternal and say, “Did you have a nice time, sugar?” She’s as clueless about me as she is about my sister, Whitney, and her drug-dealing husband.Or about Daddy and his overtime. I wonder if the faithful are meant to be so blind.
    Devon and I tell her good-bye, assuring her six ways to Sunday we’ll call if we run into trouble, and cut across the back pasture toward the trail.
    We traipse past Whitney’s faded gray trailer and head for the tree line. Sammy, my sister’s husband, is outside washing their car, his shirt off, his pale blond hair long on his back.
    â€œHey.” Sammy leers at me and starts playing air guitar on the garden hose.
    â€œWhat?” I spit the word at him. Whitney may still be in love with him, but I see him for what he is. A low-life loser who’d rather sell oxy than do what it takes to make an honest living. He’s a total idiot, but he can play the guitar.
    Sammy sticks the hose between his legs, spraying water in our direction. “Have a good time—salamander hunting.”
    I flip him the bird. “Go to hell, Sammy.”
    Devon ignores him and whistles his favorite Lady Gaga song, keeping his eyes straight ahead until Sammy’s hidden by the trees.
    Devon’s funny. Smart. He moved to town at the start of ninth grade, right around when Whitney abandonedme for Sammy, and we clung to each other like rabbits in a storm. Unfortunately, despite what Sammy may think, Devon’s not into girls. It’s a crying shame, too, because he’s dark-haired, boy-band cute, and although our taste in music runs toward polar opposites—me, bluegrass and ballads; him, Lady Gaga and pop divas—he loves playing the guitar and singing as much as I do.
    But most of all, he gets me. Devon understands my burning desire to get the hell out of Sevenmile, North Carolina, which is a seemingly impossible prospect, given my mama’s stalwart belief that her flock should settle within a couple of hundred feet of her back door. But Devon’s willing to help me try to figure it out.
    He jumps into the middle of the trail, tall stickweed shuddering as his guitar hits the leafy branches, and puts his hands on my shoulders. “This is it, Amber Plain and Small, our last night of reckless endangerment.”
    I hate the nickname. Devon says he’s doing me a favor to distinguish me from the other two Ambers in our grade. The two we lovingly refer to as Cheerleader Amber and