Cassie, her brother Brian, and Jesse head to Lindsey’s house to check up on her little brother, Tony. But when Brian has to head back to school, Cass and Jesse immediately attack one another.

Probably it’s best that I don’t know how fast Brian drove to get to Good Sam, but he’s there a lot sooner than he has any reason to be.

Not going to complain. I’ll take it.

When he rolls to a stop along the sidewalk, I open the passenger door and lift the latch to let the seat scoot forward.

“After you,” I say, overly sweet, to Jesse. He’s been sitting morosely on a short wall that brackets a little garden near the ER doors.

He doesn’t bother replying as he dives into the back seat of Brian’s Corona. A lot of people try to correct him and me when we say it, but it really is called a Corona, not a Corolla.

I get in and shut the door. Brian checks his mirrors before jetting the little brown car out of the parking lot and onto the nearest major street.

“Man, I’m sorry, Cassie,” he says he drives.

“Thanks.”

“Any word on how she is?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think she’s going to die, but then again, no one actually said that.”

Jesse speaks up from the back: “She’ll be fine.”

I twist around in my seat. Brian correctly interprets that I’m about to cause a pretty big scene as he quickly says, “Hey, seatbelts.”

I face forward, pull the belt on, and click it. God, wouldn’t that be the thing: go to see one of my best friends from junior high and end up getting killed in a car accident myself.

Stop it, I tell myself. She’s not dead.

No, another, awful voice butts into my head. Beverly just said she didn’t know, that it was “her legs and back” so maybe she’s worse than dead…

My hands fly up to my mouth to keep in a cry. From my periphery, I see Brian give me a worried glance.

“You want me to pull over?” he says.

Brian’s car has seen much, much better days: he’s got a beach blanket across the dash to hide the peeling dashboard, and there are odd crumbs in the seats no matter how many times he uses the free vacuums at 7-Eleven. Plus, the car smells like oil most of the time. All the same, I’m sure he doesn’t want to add Sister’s Puke to the list.

I pull my hands down. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m scared.”

He reaches over with the ease of someone who’s been driving a couple of years and grips my shoulder. “She’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I guess not. But I gotta believe it.”

That sentiment makes me want to cry almost as much as Lindsey being in the hospital does. My brother’s a good guy.

At least until he starts talking to my mortal blood feud enemy.

“So, how you doing, man?” Brian says, casting a quick look in the rearview mirror.

“’Kay,” Jesse grunts. “Haven’t seen you at the Wedge.”

Brian grins a little. “I don’t want to go all Murtaugh or anything, but…sometimes I do feel like I’m too old for that shit.”

The Wedge is an unofficial skate park in south Scottsdale, right near Phoenix. It’s an enormous concrete and brick construction that sits in the middle of two long green belts. There’s a tall fountain in the middle that, to my recollection, has never had any water in it. I’m sure when it was built, the Wedge was meant to be a nice place for a stroll with families. Then skateboarding happened in the seventies, and by the eighties, the place was taken over by skaters from all over town.

Brian used to skate a bit, but he was never like Jesse. Jesse—

Well, whatever. Jesse had his shot.

“Same deck?” Brian asks him.

“Yeah. You still got your board though, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I just haven’t had a chance to get on it lately.”

“Well you should come down,” Jesse says. “I mean, if you want.”

“Thanks, man,” my brother says. “I’ll try to do that.”

Then:

Silence.

Frosty, penetrating silence.

Which is just fine with me. I don’t even want to hear Jesse’s voice. Or Brian’s, for that matter, making all nicey-nice with him.

Eventually we pull up onto the concrete driveway in front of Lindey’s house. Being here brings a touch of nostalgia to my heart.

Maybe not a touch so much as a stab. I hung out here so often back in the day. 

The house hasn’t changed much. They still don’t have a garage, just the concrete slab driveway with space for two cars. The house is painted dark green, and like most of the houses around here, the front yard is desert-landscaped with gravel, decorative boulders, small cacti, and creosote bushes. 

Brian parks and we all climb out. The living room window faces the street, and I can see a TV screen blazing behind the filmy white curtains. 

Jesse knocks on the door, and Tony comes to answer. 

“Hey,” he says, poking his head past the threshold to look at all of us collectively. His brown hair is skater style, long bangs hanging to his chin with the rest of his hair cut short. 

Also his eyes are red.

Brian and I follow Jesse inside. Jesse wraps Tony in a bear hug as Brian closes the door behind us. Jesse’s not a huge guy, but he is bigger than Tony, standing about three inches taller. 

“Sorry, dude,” I hear Jesse whisper. 

Because his chin is over Jesse’s shoulder, I can see Tony squeeze his eyes shut. 

When the separate, Tony lifts an arm to rub at one eye with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “I just gotta, um…I’ll be right back.” 

He beelines for the hallway and goes into his room, closing the door. That leaves me, Brian—and Jesse. 

“You going to be okay here for awhile?” Brian asks me. “I sort of need to head to school.”

“Sure, yeah,” I say, thinking only of ways I might be able to help Tony.

“Cool,” Brian says. “Probably want to call Mom later if you need a ride.”

“I’ll work it out.”

“Okay.” To Jesse, Brian says, “Good to see you, man.”

Jesse offers a cool-guy backward nod and sits at one end of the couch.

I give my brother a quick hug, and he goes back out to the Corona.

So just like that, it’s me and Jesse, alone in the living room with a TV set playing Batman: The Animated Series and nothing to say. 

Nothing, that is, until I open my mouth and abruptly say: “I didn’t know you were gonna be there.” 

Jesse reacts instantly, like he’d been expecting me to speak. “Why, would you have not come? Because that’s the kind of friend you are?” 

“Shut up. I love Lindsey.” 

“Yeah, so do I, so?” 

“Oh, do you? I didn’t realize she was cool enough for you.” 

He turns, lifting one bent knee onto the couch cushion to face me—or, square off with me. “Hell’s that mean?” 

“Hey Red,” I say, mimicking kids in the outdoor breezeway at school, “how’s it going Red, what’s up Red?” 

Jesse gives an exaggerated gasp and covers his mouth like some countess from a movie set in Victorian England. “Oh! I have friends! So sorry, my bad. Maybe you should try it sometime.” 

“Nice, Jesse. Very nice. In case you missed it the first time, shut up.” 

“You started talking, not me.” 

“Guess that’s what us ‘fucking bitches’ do, huh?” 

That shuts him up, but only for a second. “Look—!”

That’s when Tony comes back from his room, on his way to the kitchen.

“You guys want anything?” he asks.

Jesse and I bark, in tandem, “No!”

So that’s how that goes.

I should stop ever trying to do the right thing. It always comes back to bite me.