“What is wrong with you?”
I knew better than to laugh, but a humorless chuckle escaped anyway. I looked out the passenger window. “Would you like that list in alphabetical or chronological order?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Deena shake her head.
“What did you think you were gonna do, head to Denver and sleep in your brother’s hospital room? After stealing my car? Like the police wouldn’t be all up in your business.”
I cringed. Sure, I was an act-first-think-later kind of girl, but I’d never been end-up-in-the-back-of-a-police-cruiser kind of idiot. Yeah, I’d been thrown off balance since Caleb almost died, but this—I’d reached a whole new level of stupidity.
Deena kept talking, but I only caught a few words like “reckless” and “report.” I glared at the bumpy dirt road outside my window. It wound up a hill with no end in sight. Turning around or barreling ahead made no difference. The ride would suck either way.
Deena’s voice grew louder, snapping through my thoughts. “Kella, look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn’t ready. Not for foster care, not for being alone…and definitely not for Deena. After what I just pulled, Deena was going to put me in a group home—or something like it. True, I didn’t know much about foster care, but I was pretty sure they tried not to set attempted car thieves loose on foster families. And while I didn’t want to be a foster kid, I wanted to be under lock and key even less.
“Look. At. Me.”
I sighed even as I straightened my spine from my hips to my shoulders. Ready or not…. I turned.
Deena’s eyes were usually a warm, friendly dark brown. But now, they were twin tar pits that would drown and fossilize me if I so much as breathed wrong.
“Now you listen to me—and listen good, because I’m only saying this one time.” Deena leaned in until I could see the dark pores in her face. “You listening?”
I nodded.
She sat back. “Good.”
Deena grabbed her soda and gave a long pull before she raised a perfectly manicured finger.
“One. If I hadn’t found this lady to take you in, you’d be in residential right now. No, don’t you look away from me.”
I dragged my eyes back to hers.
“Two.” Deena raised another finger. “You mess up again, I’m hauling you back to Denver and putting your butt in a residential facility for troubled teens. You get me, Kella?”
My hands clenched even as my heart soared at being given another chance. My body didn’t seem to know what to think. I gave Deena the barest nod I could manage.
“No, you get me? I know you want to be with your brother, but that’s not happening—at least not while he’s in the hospital. Anyway, seeing him once a month sure beats none, and that’s exactly what you get if you mess up. Do you want that? Do you want to be around a bunch of folks who’ve seen it all and won’t give a sh—who won’t care about you? Is that what you want?”
I shook my head.
“I asked you a question. Is that what you want?” She stared me down.
“No.” I paused. “Ma’am,” I added, since that seemed like a good idea at the moment.
Deena snorted. “Yeah, Kella, lay on all that politeness now that you’re caught. You think I don’t know what you’re thinking? I was you. That’s the only reason I’m giving you another chance.”
Deena ripped the keys out of the ignition and shoved the door open.
“Stay here,” she ordered.
“No.” The word slipped out before I could ball it up and swallow it down. But man, did it feel good coming out of my mouth.
She paused, halfway out the car, and turned to stare me down. “Excuse me? If you won’t stay in the car—”
“I’ll stay in the car, but…” It took a few seconds for me to wrap my mind around why I’d even said “no” in the first place. “…you’re nothing like me.”
Deena regarded me for a long moment before she sighed. “Look, I get it. You’re hurting right now. But just because I don’t have the exact same problems doesn’t mean I don’t understand. That’s why I did everything I could to get you into this home—because I get—”
I snorted.
“What, you don’t believe me? You think it was easy finding you some place?” Deena shifted her whole body to square off with me. “You’re new to foster care, so let me spell it out for you. Nobody wants teens. All they want is a cute little baby—or maybe a toddler—and we both know you don’t got that kind of cute.”
I rolled my eyes. Deena was giving herself way too much credit. “She called you. It sounded like she was putting in a fast-food order: ‘White, seventeen-year-old girl with an April birthday.’” I shrugged. “But if that’s your definition of doing everything, then yeah, I guess you did.”
“She didn’t…” Deena frowned. “Kella, those painkillers must be something else, because that’s not what happened. I had to beg Ms. Reid. She’d been taking a break from foster care and wanted another month.”
I stared at Deena. I’d been as clear-headed when she took that call as I was now. “She asked if you had a seventeen-year-old girl with an April birthday,” I insisted. “And you were like ‘yeah, how’d you know?’ and ‘we’ll head out there tomorrow.’”
Deena’s black brows inched even closer with every word I spoke before she shook her head. “No matter. You’ll be off those meds soon enough.”
“I wasn’t hearing things.”
Deena shot me a glance that screamed let’s indulge the delusional kid taking painkillers and I had to look away before I said something stupid. I was in enough trouble already.
Deena glanced out the car window that’d been coated with a film of dust. “Hon, I need to get my purse. Wait here a second.”
A couple of minutes later, Deena
