FOUR
Sawyer did her best to scrub the memory of Mr. Hanson’s touch from her skin. She was pink and raw and strawberry scented, but somehow the imprint of his touch, the cloying scent of his musky aftershave still clung to her and made her shudder.
She slipped into her bathrobe and was elbow deep in a box marked “bathroom,” rifling through half-filled bottles of lotions and body splashes when she heard the first plink! Sawyer straightened immediately, her hands slipping from the lotion bottles. There was a beat of deafening silence before another plink! rattled her bedroom window. Sawyer pulled the window up, then ducked before being pelted with another handful of pebbles.
“Chloe? What are you doing?”
Chloe stood in the driveway, hands on hips, illuminated by the headlights from her mother’s car. “Finally!”
“Why didn’t you call me instead of throwing”—Sawyer picked a pink blob from the windowsill—“jelly beans at my window?”
Chloe’s exasperated sigh was loud enough to reach Sawyer’s second-story perch. “Because I was trying to be romantic.”
“Aw!”
“And your choice of habitat lacks essentials, like cellular service.” She wagged her phone.
“Sorry. I’ll be right down.”
Sawyer pulled open the front door, pinching the collar of her robe against the late autumn chill. “What are you doing here?”
Chloe grinned. “Rescuing you. Put some clothes on. We’re going out.”
Sawyer began to shake her head. “No, no, I’m in for the night. My dad and stepmom are already in bed.”
“All the better. There’s a party at Evan Rutger’s house and you’re going.”
“Definitely not in the party mood.”
Chloe cocked her head, hands on hips. “Didn’t your shrink say that you needed to get back into doing regular, teenager-y things? What’s more teenager-y than red party cups?”
“Somehow I don’t think Dr. Johnson was referencing underage drinking when he said I should engage in common teen activities.”
“You don’t think that’s what he meant. You don’t know for sure. Come on,” Chloe snapped Sawyer on the butt. “Upstairs. Get dressed.”
“Fine,” Sawyer said. “One hour.”
“Whatever. Just be my date so I don’t look like a loner.”
•••
Cars, red party cups, and the errant student littered Evan Rutger’s family’s well-manicured lawn.
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Truly, Madly, Deadly
Teen FictionThey Said It Was An Accident... Sawyer Dodd is a star athlete, a straight-A student, and the envy of every other girl who wants to date Kevin Anderson. When Kevin dies in a tragic car crash, Sawyer is stunned. Then she opens her locker to find a not...
