She leans into me at the doorway and kisses my forehead lightly. “I know you’ll make the right decision,” she says, sounding like my mom. I just shrug. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need a run. But first I need to go see Joey. I don’t know if I’m going there to talk things out or to beat him up, but I’m going. Somehow that will help me decide. “See ya,” I say. Shelly watches me from the step until I’m out of sight; I keep looking back, and she keeps standing there. So I walk up the hill and through the downtown and over to Joey’s. They live in one of those big old Victorians on Myrtle; I think it was passed down to them from Joey’s father’s family. I used to come over here once in a while after school. One time me and Joey went up to the attic and crawled out on the roof, which is steep and fairly high. We could see way over to the valley and, much closer, into people’s yards and windows. We were about thirteen, and one of the neighbors started yelling at us to get the heck down from there before we fell and broke our necks or worse.
