I raised my cookie up for a bite, but where my teeth expected to meet chewy, gooey goodness, they slammed into a brick instead. My hand moved reflexively to my jaw. Maeve might look like a 50s housewife, but she must have flunked Home Ec.
Mickey gamely chomped down on his serving of over-baked tragedy instead of looking at me. Maybe Bridgette was right. Maybe he’d grow to love her. Maybe he only thought she was obnoxious because he hadn’t moved on from his old girlfriend—the one who died. When he did, maybe Bridgette thought she’d be right there, ready to take her place.
The thought made me cringe. Bridgette—any girl—deserved better than that. And in any case, I’d strung together a pretty long list of “maybes.” Maybe I was wrong.
The phone on the kitchen counter rang. Maeve, who’d been wiping down the already clean counters, paused, her head whipping up to stare at it.
It rang again.
No one moved.
“Um, want me to get it?” I asked.
Maeve stepped toward the phone as if I’d broken some sort of taboo, picking it up on the third ring.
“Who is this?” she said.
I arched a brow at Mickey, who shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “That’s Maeve.”
“I see.” Pause. “Yes. She’s here.”
Maeve held the phone out to me. “Kella? Your caseworker wishes to speak with you.”
I grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Hey, Kella, it’s me, Deena. I just wanted to check in with you. How was your first day at school?”
“One second.” I looked over at Mickey and Maeve. Maeve leaned with her back to the counter, her arms folded as she watched me. Mickey wasn’t looking at me, but he was on cookie number two. That could only mean he was using it as an excuse to listen.
I covered the receiver before I said, “Could I have a little privacy? Please?” Maeve opened her mouth but seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say. Instead, she shut her mouth and walked out of the kitchen.
“You, too,” I said to Mickey. He got up and threw his cookie in the trash before he left the kitchen.
“Okay, Deena? School was insane.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll catch up soon.”
“No, not that kind of insane. I mean…” What did I mean? That the students and teachers were beyond hot? That I think I might have drooled on my desk in Mr. O’Faolain's class, but I couldn’t be sure because I was too busy ogling him? Anything I said would have Deena rolling her eyes.
“Things are just weird here.”
“Well,” Deena said, drawing the word out. “Maybe that has to do with you being new and all. It’s a small town, and small towns do things different than cities like Denver. It takes time to get used to them—and them to get used to you.”
“But…” I sighed loud enough into the receiver that it crackled back at me. “Sure.”
“So how is your foster family? You settling in?”
“Maeve’s fine. A little uptight. But Mickey—I know he doesn’t look like it, but he’s got a shitload of drama following him around. I could do without that.”
“But he’s treating you okay?”
“Well, yeah,” I admitted.
“Good,” Deena said. She took a deep breath, and I found myself tensing, waiting for what she was about to say. Deep breaths over the phone weren’t usually a good sign.
“About your brother…”
Panic kicked in, setting my heart racing. This wasn’t just a friendly call. “Caleb? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“He’s fine, he’s fine. The doctors just had a little scare a couple hours after we left yesterday.”
“What kind of scare?”
Deena sighed. “The kind where he didn’t get transferred out of the ICU. But he is stable for now.”
For now.
“I told you something like this was going to happen. I knew it.” I wanted to shout it into the phone, but I didn’t want Maeve or Mickey to come to see what was going on.
“Honey, there wasn’t anything you could have done to stop it. It’s just one of those things.”
“No, he needs me there. You know how some patients get better when they’ve got family talking to them? I bet Caleb needed that and not some lame nurse Kate that reads him romance novels,” I said.
“You couldn’t have stayed up there by yourself. You know that. Not with you being a minor.” Deena paused. When she spoke again, her voice was carefully neutral. “Kella, how’d you know about his nurse?”
“What?”
“Kate. How’d you know he had a nurse named Kate?”
“I don’t know, I—” I stopped to think. The dream. Caleb told me in my dream. But that was impossible. But what were the chances that dream Caleb told me something that only real Caleb would have known? Then again, Kate was a pretty common name—it could have been a coincidence. A really strange coincidence.
“Kella? You there?” Deena asked.
“Uh, yeah. Um, maybe you mentioned it?”
“No, I just met that one today,” Deena said. “Were you walking around that hospital when you weren’t supposed to?”
“No, I—”
“Tell me the truth.”
“Maybe one of my nurses mentioned her?” I said, because explaining that I’d dreamed it would so not go over well. Deena would never believe me.
“Okay,” Deena said, her tone letting me know that even though she wasn’t buying it, she wasn’t going to push it either.
“Deena? I want to see him.”
Her sigh crackled in my ear, and I gripped the phone even harder, scared she’d say no.
“It’s not a good time right now, Kella. You need to be in school. You’re not going to catch up if you keep missing classes. I can’t take you on the weekends, and
