CHAPTER
30

KEN’S BEEN GONE for three days, not a word from him in all that time. I haven’t tried to get in touch with him, either. As far as I’m concerned, Eli and I are on our own.

I got the paperwork for the life insurance, not that it will do me much good if he never comes home. I’m searching through Ken’s dresser for anything of value that I can sell, when my phone rings. I ignore it. I’m not interested in dealing with anyone trying to talk to me about my car’s extended warranty. The call shunts to voice mail. A text buzzes through. It’s from Lisa.

Hey, I just heard something I think you need to know. Call me?

How could I have gone from spending hours on the phone back in high school to physically cringing at the idea of actually talking to someone live, in real time, with their live, real voice? Still, if you want to make a friend, you should be a friend. I swipe to dial her number.

“What’s up?” I close the dresser drawer with a thud.

“You sound pretty calm. I guess you haven’t heard? I thought the school would’ve called you or something. Ugh, maybe they don’t know. Probably too focused on dress-coding girls for bare shoulders instead of paying attention to actual—Forget I said anything.”

“Actual what?” I sit on the edge of the bed, the phone cradled to my ear in a way that’ll make my neck hurt if I’m not careful.

“Ugh,” she repeats. “One of those disappearing pictures circulated around of Eli selling some pills to some of the kids at school.”

Ice fills me. “You saw this?”

“No. And I don’t know what kind of pills they were supposed to be. But Brianna told me a friend of hers saw it. Or a friend of the friend’s friend, you know how it goes. She keeps in touch with a couple of the kids that haven’t graduated yet.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it. Certainly not from the school.” I swallow hard. “Look, I know my kid’s not popular. But he’s a good kid. I don’t have any evidence that he’s even taking drugs, much less selling them.”

“It could just be one of those stories that gets passed around. You know, people hear things, and they get exaggerated. If someone heard that Eli’s mom used to have a pill problem, then …” Lisa coughs.

“I quit all of that years ago. So he couldn’t be getting them from me—” I stop myself short, almost clipping my tongue between my teeth.

There was that morning I’d thought he was high. And before I’d flushed it all away, some of my old stash had gone missing, but a few pills here and there? That can’t be enough for him to be actually selling anything. Could it?

Scotty’s not my friend. He just came over to get something from me. Christian’s the only one who gives me anything. Everyone else only wants something from me.