Page 24 of The Accidental Text

“Oh, good,” Devon gives me a smirk. “Maybe I won’t bring someone.”

I reach over and grab the back of his arm and pinch him, hard.

Devon cusses, loudly, the words bouncing around the epoxy-finished cement floors of the office. He rubs the back of his arm and gives me a look that I know well. I better watch my back—revenge is coming.

“Devon,” my dad says, his voice annoyed. My dad thinksthere are better words than cusswords. Our mom, however, enjoyed dropping them freely, and especially for shock value. She was, by most definitions, the quintessential mom. Caring, nurturing, loving … but with a potty mouth.

My dad takes a big breath, sitting back in his chair, he weaves his fingers together and places them in his lap. “I’m going to bring June,” he announces.

Silence lands on the room. You could hear a pin drop. Or an ant scurry.

After a moment of staring at my dad, I turn my face to my left and right to see that both Chelsea’s and Devon’s eyes are wide and Devon’s mouth is hanging open.

“You—you’re bringing June?” I say after I can’t take the silence anymore. “As your … date?”

June, our neighbor? The widow?

My dad just looks at all of us. “As my friend,” he says.

I feel the tension in the room take a big dramatic breather. I reach up and grab thekpendant and run it back and forth on the chain.

My dad takes another big inhale. “She’s been very helpful with … everything. She’s been doing the widow thing for a while now. It’s been nice to have someone to talk to. So as a thank you, I invited her to the party.”

In my peripheral vision I see Devon’s back go less rigid.

“Well, I think it’s great,” I say, trying to ease the tension that still hangs in the air. I’m not sure I feel all that great, to be honest.

Just the sheer fact that he’s bringing someone to the party that’s not our mom is weirding me out. I need to get over myself, though. My dad is a grown man. He can have friends.He just can’t fall in love with said friends and then replace my mom and, oh my gosh, is the heat on in here?

“Yeah, Dad,” Devon says, his voice void of inflection. “It’s … great.”

I look to Chelsea to see her nodding her head rapidly, like she’s experiencing some sort of tremor.

We are clearly not okay with this.

“Thanks, kids,” Dad says. “For all your hard work. I think it will be a great night.”

We all say our goodbyes and file out of my dad’s office.

I nod at my siblings as we walk down the hallway and, without words, we all go to my office for another sibling meeting.

Chapter 9

Maggie:How are you doing?

It took me twenty minutes of going back and forth to decide to text Chase. I kept buffering with a game on my phone. I’m not sure why I want to. It feels … weird. But I do it anyway. His last texts still haunt me. I have this need to know how he is.

I’m sitting in my room the next Monday night, after sharing pizza with Hannah and then telling her I was going to go lie down after eating too much.

It wasn’t a lie—I really did eat too much. But I also wanted to text Chase. And I had to do it in secret, because I know how Hannah is. She has to know everything. Anytime I’m texting someone in her presence, she asks who it is. She just needs to know. She can’t help herself. I’ve even had to turn off my phone’s lock screen text preview because of her snooping ways. It’s also why I never texted my mom’s phone in front of her. I’d usually escape to my room, like I am right now.

I would totally tell her about Chase, but I’d have to explain the story behind it, and I’m not ready to tell anyone. I don’t know if I ever will be. Every version I come up with in my head ends with me sounding like a crazy person.

The three dots show up on my phone and I feel my pulse pick up from the strangeness of this entire thing.

(480)555-1058:I’ve been better

So much context in that one message. I feel that ache in my heart again.

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