Page 56 of The Other Half

“You seem upset.”

I shake my head. “I just don’t get Oliver. He completely ignored me for weeks, but now he’s freaking out about my eye. Pretending he cares about me.”

She gives me a sympathetic half smile. “I wasn’t gonna say anything about it… are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just tripped.”

I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but she nods anyway and throws the car in reverse.

“You wanna come stay at my house tonight? Maybe it’d be good to get some distance from your parents,” she suggests. She rolls the window down to ash her cigarette, and the cold breeze makes me shiver.

“I’m still not allowed to go out.”

“Your parents are mad because you snuck out with Oliver, though. Maybe they’d be cool with you coming to my house. Your mom seemed to like me.”

I mull it over, but I know they wouldn’t let me spend the night anywhere right now. My dad’s made that abundantly clear. “Maybe I could convince them to let me hang out with you tomorrow during the day.”

We chat about other, less serious things the rest of the way to my house, then she drops me off at my doorstep.

I walk inside and notice three large suitcases sitting next to the stairs. I guess we’re going somewhere for Christmas again. Last year it was the Virgin Islands. I’ve never understood why we usually leave our cozy hometown to spend the holiday somewhere tropical, it always sort of sucked the Christmas spirit out of the whole occasion for me.

My mom walks into the foyer with an exasperated look on her face, heaving like she’s out of breath. “Oakley, you’re home,” she says.

“Hey, where are we going?”

“Gran’s,” she clips. She walks past me and starts to climb the stairs in a hurry. “Go check your room to make sure there’s nothing else you want to bring.”

‘We’re spending Christmas at Gran’s?” I ask, puzzled, we haven’t done that since I was a little kid. Unfortunately, we hardly ever see my grandma anymore, but maybe once a year, even though she only lives two hours away. I’m excited to see her again, I’ve missed her.

“We’re going to stay there for a while,” she answers, disappearing down the hall and into her bedroom.

I trot up the stairs after her and check my room for any important things she may have forgotten. I grab a couple of books for the car ride and my favorite pair of slippers, dropping my bookbag on my bed since I won’t need it for the next two weeks.

“When you’re done, start putting the bags in the car, will you?” She yells.

She’s acting very out of character. Denise Matthews is usually the epitome of a perfect suburban housewife, complete with expertly curled hair and a strand of pearls around her neck. But right now she looks frazzled, wearing yoga pants and her hair tied up in a messy bun.

I head downstairs and do what she says, piling the luggage into the back hatch of her SUV.

She opens the driver’s side door. “Did you get everything you need?”

“I think so.” I don’t know what else I could need for a visit with Gran. “How long are we staying?”

“As long as she’ll allow,” she says as I climb into the passenger’s seat. She glances once more at the house and then throws the car in reverse.

“Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“We’re going to stay with Mom until I can figure out somewhere else for us to go, Oakley.”

I panic, finally realizing what she meant by ‘a while’. “No! We have to bring Johnny!” I yell desperately.

She sighs and parks the car suddenly, jolting us against our seats. “You’ll have to hold him on your lap the entire ride.”

I throw the car door open and jump out. I’m angry that she would even consider leaving our pet behind. Dad has never liked the cat, and I wouldn’t put it past him to do something horrible to him as soon as he realized we were gone.

I settle back into my seat with my cat in my lap. I know I’m going to be covered in fur in about three minutes, but I don’t really care.

I watch my house in the rearview mirror as it gets smaller and smaller, until it disappears from my view. My feelings have been all over the place already today, and now they’ve been turned upside down yet again.

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