Chameleon ✔️

20 bargains

CW: This chapter briefly depicts underage alcohol consumption.

Friday finds me in bed. I tell Dad that I'm not feeling well and he takes the Camry to the store to get me some soup and tea. The only way not to think about the thing I don't want to think about it is to be unconscious, and death seems like a big commitment. So I sleep. I awaken only to eat the soup and drink the tea and use the bathroom. I admit that I check my phone to see if he's texted me. He hasn't. So still I sleep.

Someone does text me in the early afternoon, but it is not a number that I recognize. Although I realize that that's not really saying much.

you and jah play hooky together?

Using context clues, this could only be one of three people. And my money's on one in particular.

Sam?

the one and only.

And I feel something dark. Did Eli skip school, too?

I wasn't feeling well this morning. I tell him. Not entirely a lie.

right.

Was Eli not at school today? I wonder if he can read the pity within the black letters beneath the glass screen.

stop playing dumb

I toss the phone to the other side of my bed. I don't have to answer to Sampson. After a minute or two, it dings again, signaling an incoming message. The orange nags at me until I read it.

my buddy ty is throwin a party tn. kinda a sendoff for the sr's type thing. supposed to be a real banger. i'm tryin to make eli come with but he won't answer his phone. could u relay the message for me

Now, I have two options here. Tell Sam I'm really not with Eli, or don't. Curious.

What's the address?

Upon receiving it and entering it into my maps app, I learn that Tyler Prestridge's house is about a seven minute drive from mine. So I get an idea. A terrible, awful, just-might-work idea. But it involves asking a favor of Sam. One that, if I've correctly judged him, he'll expect compensation for, which is a bridge I'll just have to cross when I come to it.

But for now, I sleep.

🦎

It is early evening when I emerge from my room clad in sweats and a tee. I'd like to slide past Dad unnoticed, but that is a near unobtainable feat in a single-story house of this size. He hears my door squeak open above the hum of the television and looks over his shoulder.

"Hey, Pen. How ya feeling?"

I go to him in the living room, my book bag slung haphazardly over my shoulder. "I think it was just a weird stomach thing. Must've slept most of it off."

"You look like you're feeling better," he nods. "Come here and let me feel you."

I kneel on the floor so he can hold the back of his hand to my forehead, although I know it isn't running warm and never was. "You're a little warm," he says, but I see his eyes glance down to my book bag and back up. "You going out?"

"Yeah, I think I'll feel better once I get out of bed and go do something," I tell him, just as I'd rehearsed. "Our final art projects are due at the end of this coming week."

His aura is a doubting teal. "You going to the Whitneys'?"

"Well, yeah. Where else would I go?" Where else am I allowed to go, I should say.