Where the Road Takes Me Read Online Free Page B

done it. “What?” I said, sitting up and letting the covers bunch at my waist.
    I tried to focus my vision as I pulled the phone away to check the time. It was early afternoon, but I felt like I’d only just fallen asleep.
    “Find a new toy last night? Hannah was pissed you just left.”
    I’d never been with anyone but Hannah, and I didn’t know what made him think differently. “That’s why you’re calling?”
    His chuckle made me squirm. “No, dick. We’re all meeting at the tattoo shop. Remember?”
    I rolled my eyes. We had just won the state championship the week before, and the team wanted to get matching tattoos. It was stupid. They were stupid.
    “Yeah, man. I’ll meet you there,” I lied and faked the edginess in my tone as I said, “I gotta go. Hannah’s calling.” I hung up and threw the phone on the bed. Not five seconds later, it rang again. Hannah this time. I picked it up and rejected the call.
    Resting on the edge of the bed, I let my feet drop to the floor with a thud. And then I did something pathetic. I got on my phone, pulled up Facebook, and typed in the name Abby . Of course I had been too dumbstruck to call my phone from hers and get her number last night, but I was sure we had to know some of the same people—and Facebook was the place to find anyone.
    Only it wasn’t.
    I searched through four pages of Abbys . Nothing.

    With the basketball season over and my “friends” being idiots, I didn’t have shit to do. I tried to get some homework done, but I couldn’t focus.
    After lacing my sneakers and going to my wardrobe, I moved a few boxes aside on the top shelf until I felt the hard leather of the basketball. This one was new, my fifth one in just as many months. I’d tried to find different places to hide them, but my strategy didn’t seem to be working. Dad had never told me, and I’d never asked, but I knew he was taking them . . . probably deflating and discarding them, just like he’d done with my ego and my dreams of playing ball.
    The one thing he couldn’t take away, though, was the mental escape I got from playing the game. And right now, I needed the escape. I needed to get Abby out of my head.
    An hour dribbling a ball up and down the driveway killed me. I hunched over and attempted to catch my breath.
    “You’re dehydrated.”
    I lifted my eyes. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d heard her voice. I nodded in greeting. “Mother.”
    She leaned against the doorway of the guesthouse and took a sip of whatever her current choice of alcoholic beverage was. “Have you had anything to eat or drink today?” she asked.
    Sighing, I straightened up, dropped the ball on the ground, and settled my foot on it. Then I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for her to continue with the facade of being a caring mother.
    She glared at me. It was her go-to move. “What?” She raised her chin, attempting to look defiant. It would’ve worked if she wasn’t drunk off her ass. She’d changed in the last few years since she’d started drinking. She had once been vibrant, the perfect soccer mom, according to everyone. Now she looked like ass. Her clothes were several sizes too big for her, most likely because of all the weight she’d lost recently. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes had lost the fight to fake it. She looked at least a decade older than her forty-five years.
    “Just surprised you remember who I am is all.”
    She sighed, dropping her shoulders, and stared at the ground. “I was at your game,” she said, as though it was going to make up for years of neglect.
    “I didn’t see you.”
    “I went in disguise.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Of course you did.”
    She pushed off the door frame and looked like she wanted to come to me. Maybe say something more than the few words we occasionally exchanged. “I tried” is all she said, before walking backwards into the guesthouse and shutting the door.
    Guesthouse—I should probably stop calling it