Read Online Dead Ends by Erin Jade Lange - Free Book Online Page B

through the first few boxes, but he quickly lost focus. Every box contained some new distraction.
    This is the Megatron Transformer Dad got me for Christmas.
    This is the picture I drew in kindergarten that Dad put up on the fridge.
    This is the ticket from when Dad took me to the zoo, and we spent a whole hour at the monkey cage watching them pick bugs off each other—Dane, did you know the monkeys pick bugs off each other? And then they
eat
them. They eat the bugs!
    Billy’s stories made me want to smile and scream in equal parts. It was nice hearing about having a dad from someone who wasn’t throwing it in my face to hurt me.
    But I would never have stories like that.
    And with every memory from Billy, I felt a little more pissed at his mom for taking him away—for keeping him from making more memories. I hoped my mom hadn’t done the same. I even hoped for one small second that she
didn’t
know who my dad was, because at least that would be a pretty damn good reason for not telling me.
    I was about to give up on the boxes when my hand closed over the edge of something thick and flat.
    â€œBilly D., I think I found one.”
    â€œA photo album?” He dropped his Megatron toy and crawled over to me.
    â€œYeah.”
    I pulled the album from the box and blew the dust off its cover. A picture on the front showed two hands with fingers interlaced, wedding rings in sharp focus.
    Jackpot
.
    â€œYou found it!” Billy clapped and bounced around on the floor.
    I cracked open the cover, almost as eager as Billy to see if I was on the right track. The binding creaked as I opened it—too loudly. I stopped moving, but the creak continued. It wasn’t thephoto album making the noise, I realized. It was the front door. Billy and I locked eyes, and I saw my own panic reflected in his when we heard his mom’s voice call, “Billy? You home?”
    We jerked forward simultaneously, both aiming to leap to our feet and smacking foreheads instead.
    â€œOw.”
    â€œShit.”
    â€œBilly?” Mrs. Drum’s voice was closer, moving down the hall.
    I dropped the album back into the box, and Billy tossed the biggest pieces from his toy collection on top of it. The split-second teamwork covered the evidence just as Mrs. Drum’s face appeared in the doorway.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked. The question started with a smile, but her eyes slid from Billy to me as she spoke, and by the time she reached the question mark, she was scowling.
    â€œI said no visitors when I’m not home.”
    I returned the stare and tried to make mine even fiercer. She had no right to be giving me that look. What had I done to her, besides keep her kid entertained while she worked long hours and kept secrets?
You’re welcome
, I thought.
    â€œI’m showing Dane my toys,” Billy said.
    It was a decent cover. Half truths are really the most believable lies. But I felt a twitch in my stomach as Mrs. Drum’s eyes slipped down to the box. She let out a tired sigh. “Fine. I don’t have time to argue. I have to go back to work. I just came to pick up—I mean, we’re out of—” She rubbed her eyes. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just please stay home for the rest of the day. And no visitors after dark,” she said pointedly.
    Billy agreed, and we followed his mom into the kitchen, where she grabbed an industrial-size bottle of bleach and a handful of old rags. I took in her clothes, a uniform of papery gray pants and a matching top, like dreary doctor scrubs.
    â€œWhere do you work, Mrs. Drum?” I asked, using the voice I used with girls at school.
    Apparently it
only
worked on girls at school, because Mrs. Drum snapped her head around and fixed me with a look like I’d just let out a string of curse words.
    â€œWhy?” she asked.
    I stepped back in surprise. “Just making conversation,” I said.
    She watched me for a