This Raging Light by Estelle Laure Page A

right now and then don’t ever say it again.”
    I giggle like a dummy and get out of the car.
    â€œYou owe me ten.” He says it so seriously, I almost stand there at the window and do it, but then the side of his mouth turns up and I walk away.
    â€œChatty,” Eden says.
    I realize my cheeks hurt from smiling, and I force my face to relax. Gaw! What is wrong with me?
    â€œI thought your fixation was cute at first, but maybe a reality check?” she shoots without preamble. “He has a girlfriend.”
    Digby’s passenger window is open and I want to shush her, but I can tell she is in a mood. I don’t say anything, but if the zipper on my hoodie went all the way up, I would pull it right over my face.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” I say.
    She crushes her smoke and waves away the last of the slinky fog. “Good news or bad news first?”
    â€œBad.” My gut is a rock. What now?
    I start pulling weeds from our little patch of grass to distract myself.
    â€œI can’t do this for you anymore,” Eden says. “Babysit Wren.”
    I almost have money to pay the cable bill so Wrenny can keep watching her cooking shows. I try to imagine her life without them and I can’t.
    â€œI’m falling behind in ballet.”
    Of course she is. I hadn’t even thought of it. She said she could only do two nights. I just buried it.
    â€œI want to be there for you, but I’m not going to enough classes. I want us to be all with our riverside plan, except I can’t and still do what I want to do with my life.” She kicks the chair underneath her. “I don’t want to let you down, Lu.” Her lip is doing a quiver thing. Not a good sign. “And all I can think is, if I’m this tired, you must be . . . And Wren is awesome. I don’t mean that she’s not—”
    I drop my weeds, walk up the porch steps, and sit down on the bench next to her. “It’s okay. I’ll just have to figure something else out.”
    What choice do I have?
    I get it. Madame Renee is terrifying. The few times I’ve seen her, I’ve wondered how she gets her bun pulled so tight that her eyebrows meet her hairline. I wouldn’t mess with her either. And to be honest, I hadn’t really thought that Eden’s dancing would suffer because of me. That’s the trouble with letting people help. It always costs somebody something.
    My brain is running through possibilities and coming up empty. I don’t have anybody else. I never expected Eden to bail on me, and I’m not seeing another solution. Instead, I am seeing Wren and me in frayed and discolored woolen blankets walking the streets begging for alms. We have dirt on our faces and under our nails, and we shake in the cold. Because in this fantasy it is sometime in the 1600s and I have an English accent.
    Digby honks.
    Eden flips him off. “Hold your horses, cowboy!” she shouts.
    It’s late for all this noise, and I can see Smoking Guy’s cherry from here.
    Eden’s voice drops. “My mom is going to get a phone call from Madame Renee any day now. I don’t know why . . . I don’t know why I thought this would work. I wanted to be your hero. I thought your mom would come back.” She throws her hands on my shoulders and we sit forehead to forehead. “What kind of person doesn’t come back?”
    â€œI don’t know. What kind of person leaves in the first place?”
    Eden pulls at the ends of my hair. “There are so many ways to leave.”
    Leaving is easy,
I think.
Easier than staying.
    â€œLu,” she says, “I think you should tell. It’s getting serious now. It’s time for you to tell someone.”
    â€œShe can’t.” Digby got out of the car, I guess. “So if you two are done making out, can we think logically for a second?”
    Eden drops hands to her side. I pull back.
    â€œMaybe