Quarterback Bait

After enduring Mrs. Letourneau's speech about punctuality and the assorted snickers of my tormentors in the first few rows, I took a seat at the back of the lab. I thought about Mr. Dempsey, who seemed so cool and together but spoke to me like I was an equal. In an inspirational flash, I saw him with my sister. If Carson would ever get over that rodeo clown Tex (and yes—my sister had dated an actual rodeo clown), it seemed to me that those two could make a good pair.

“What's so fu

“Nothing, Mrs. Letourneau.”

“You won't be able to locate your pig's heart valves if you don't pay attention, Ashleigh.” My teacher looked at me in a way that seemed to demand a response, but I bit my tongue—even though in the diagram she'd drawn on the board, she'd mislabeled both the parietal pericardium, and the visceral.

I thought about the conversation in the hallway. My cool companion. Keep your head down, Ash, Mr. Dempsey repeated in my mind's eye.

Bored by the repetitive lesson, I allowed my thoughts to drift toward Anya. My mother had gotten a new job (no small thanks to Carson's legwork), managing the tiny office of a Montessori school. It was part-time, easy work, but that alone wasn't enough to soothe my fears. I was worried about what Mom would do when I left next year. For as much as I wanted to get away from all the heartache, I couldn't picture her functioning on her own.

“...the ventral side is towards you,” Mrs. Letourneau plowed on. Pencils scratched all around me. One brazen soul had taken his phone out, and placed it on the desk behind a scalpel. Giddy with inspiration, I dug into my shorts pocket and located my own phone, figuring I could at least play a game of Solitaire while I pretended to participate in an assignment I'd already aced twice.

To my surprise, my phone had seven texts—though I only had three numbers in my contacts. One was Mom, one was Carson, and one was Melanie—who I hadn't spoken to in weeks, anyway. I'd made a few allies in different cities, but I never kept those numbers in my phone. They only served to remind me of the trajectory of high school relationships. A buddy would call, we'd text for a while, and then eventually, inevitably...radio silence would descend. Even Melanie, who I'd been so close with at the begi

All the new messages were from my mom, and they were smattered with emojis. My heart began to race. She only got super excited when she was in the middle of some kind of...episode. Unsure what could have been the trigger, I began to scroll:

Baby, have some amAZing news. Call me bk when ur outta skool

I don't think I can wate. It's too godo

*good!!!!!

OK—I'm in love!

With a PREACHER MAN!!!

He's asked me to MARRY him, Ash!

Lots to talk abt! PLZ CALL ME BACKKKKKK

I slammed the phone down on the desk, drawing Mrs. Letourneau's stink-eye again. But this time, I didn't pander to her with an apologetic smile. I let her see that I was mad.

Of all the things, Anya. This? This was too much.

At least, I figured, I'd be out of that house by August. Test scores and a diploma, that was all that stood between me and a college dorm. I could leave my crazy mother to sleep in the bed she'd made, soon enough.

Chapter Seven

Ash

July 12th

Anya fluttered around the house like a parakeet—she was a dervish of clinking bangles and twirling hair. From our garage sale couch, I watched her reposition our modest furniture, as if end tables shifting an inch or so to the left would make a world of difference. She chewed on her lips. She lit incense.

“You could help, you know, Miss Ashleigh,” my mother tutted, invoking a scarcely established hierarchy. For in most ways, I considered Anya Be

“Pastor Sterling will be over in fifteen minutes, Ash. I'm not playing around. Get dressed!”

“I am dressed.”

Anya put her hands on her wide hips. She'd gained some curves in the past few weeks of her whirlwind romance, which wasn't at all a bad thing considering her typically ski

“PS—you don't actually call him Pastor Sterling, do you? Like on dates?”

“That's none of your beeswax, butterfly.” She swatted me with a Tibetan throw pillow, but I could see the smile in her eyes. It was the same look that I was sure had prompted Carson to press me about boy stuff on our thrifting expedition all those weeks before. Anya was definitely smitten.

With a pang, I imagined what my half-sister was doing that night. Probably playing some open mic venue, or hosting a di

“If not for me and Bill, you should consider getting cute for the son.” I rolled my eyes harder, and added a groan. Anya had been talking about Pastor Sterling's mystery son for days now—she'd almost been as giddy about his existence as her fiancé’s. “Bill tells me he's an athlete!” she'd said several times, wiggling her eyebrows at me over a Lean Cuisine meal. Meanwhile, I'd spent my last day at Lee High avoiding an army of jocks roaming the halls with unwrapped condoms, each apparently having been tasked to pelt me with lubed-up prophylactics. Mr. Dempsey had mentioned last-day-of-school hazing as a big thing for East Texas upperclassmen, but that hadn't been any solace for a girl who'd been bullied all year long. If I was leaving high school with anything, it was the fairly strong conviction that I'd never go out of my way to befriend an athlete as long as I lived.