Read Online Always Upbeat / All That by Stephanie Perry Moore - Free Book Online

have me driving something that was gonna fall apart any minute.”
    She and I both knew that wasn’t true— I mean her dad is a mechanic, and her car is not going to explode. However, that car was a hunk of junk no matter how many parts were replaced. Unless it had been in his shop within the last forty-eight hours, they were taking a chance on it stalling out somewhere.
    â€œI was just saying,” I softly replied, backing away from my last statement.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Eva called out in haste.
    Ticked, I blurted, “Thanks, Randal, for letting me know I’m on speaker.”
    â€œWere you gonna talk about us or something?” Eva questioned.
    â€œNo, I don’t do that,” I said. “Unlike others I thought I could trust.”
    â€œOh, true. You don’t talk about us or to us until your little feelings get hurt. Then you’re calling everybody. Except me because you know I ain’t tryna hear it. You better call Blake. Maybe he’s got time for you.”
    Then I heard laughter in the background. I could not believe they were giggling about this. My life was falling apart, and they thought it was funny.
    â€œAll right, fine. See you guys,” I said, fed up.
    I wasn’t going to beg anybody to hang out with me. They knew I loved them. I might have been a little brash, but that did not mean I did not have feelings, that I did not care about them, and that they should just treat me any old kind of way.
    Eva did have a point though. I needed to get with Blake. I needed to be in his arms. I needed him to hold me. I needed him to tell me everything was going to be okay. He had been the captain of his team as a sophomore. He’d been through all this, and I hadn’t listened to him before when he was trying to tell me how to respond and how to not be too rough. Now I was definitely going to listen because my way clearly was not working.
    The call went straight to his voicemail, so I texted him. Twenty minutes later, I called him again. Fifteen minutes later, I texted him again. He was not calling me back. I knew he needed me over the last few days, and I could not be there. I still did not know what he wanted to discuss. I just hoped I could find him and bond with him in the way he had been waiting for.
    I was going nuts pacing back and forth in my room, wondering where in the world was Blake. Why wasn’t he picking up my calls? I desperately needed to be with him just like a person who’d been in the desert for days without water longed for a drink. I just needed to speak to him, talk to him, hear his voice, or something. The non-communication was truly unsettling.
    I picked up my phone and called him one more time. When his voicemail came on I said, “Blake, this is my tenth time calling or maybe the eleventh. I don’t know what’s going on. I only know that you’re not answering the phone. Where are you? What’s wrong?”
    Then I decided to just get my keys and go find him. I went into my mom’s room to ask if I could head out, but her door was locked. I knocked on it and heard her moaning.
    â€œYou okay, Mom?” When she didn’t respond I asked, “Is it okay if I head out for a little while? I’ll be right back.”
    In an upset tone, she said, “Just be careful and make sure you’re in this house before eleven-thirty.”
    It was nine, but I had to take what I could get, so I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
    When I got in Sir Charles, I started thinking as if I was Blake. Where would he be? One place I knew I needed to hit was the bowling alley. Blake and some of his teammates loved going there to talk junk and try to beat each other. It also had a video arcade, laser tag, and it was just a cool place where they liked to hang out. However, his car was nowhere in sight. I didn’t even go in to look.
    The skating rink was not too far away, but I didn’t think he was there, as it