Stay With Me (Come Back to Me #2)

Chapter 9

It's okay. I quickly type back.

While the message is labelled as "read," she doesn't reply to me.

Two minutes pass. Four minutes.

I begin to worry. Did I say the wrong thing?

And then my ringtone goes off.

It's Addie.

My stomach clenches in fear. Why is she calling me? Since when do people actually call each other? Shit.

But I suck up the questions and answer. "Hello?

"Hey," Addie replies. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"No. I was just reading a book."

"I'm sorry about earlier, Justin."

Talk about getting right to the topic. It's odd, having someone apologize to me. Usually, I'm the one apologizing – saying how sorry I am for being a waste of space, of being incapable of doing things a normal human being does on a daily basis. But I can't say that I don't like it. It makes me feel like someone other than my mom actually cares about me.

Tired of holding my phone up to my ear, I put Addie on speaker phone and toss my iPhone onto the bed, laying down next to it.

"It's fine, Addie," I say.

"No." I can picture her shaking her head. "It's not okay. The comment Sophia made was rude and completely out of character – she's usually nicer. That was a bitchy thing to do."

I close my eyes and smile, holding back a laugh. Hearing Addie swear is something that's out of character. "Seriously, Addie, it's fine. I've got thick skin – she's going to have to do a lot more to hurt me."

"Oh," she says. "I just thought that...y'know...she did hurt you because you weren't there when I got back."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I needed to go talk to my Chem teacher about my grades. As you saw, I'm not doing good in that class." That's an understatement. I'm failing. Drastically. And I thought Chem 11 was hard.

Addie's silent on the other end for a few seconds. "I meant what I said; about helping you with Chemistry," she offers. "That happens to be the class I'm doing best in. If you want help, I'm here. No cost."

I consider my options. If Addie were to tutor me instead of Mom getting me a tutor, we wouldn't have to worry about money, which is something we're struggling with. But then again, she could find out the secret I want to keep her safe from, which would probably scare her away. My condition is a taboo everyone is afraid of.

Agreeing would also contradict who I am – I know better than to become friends with people because they always leave me behind.

But Addie...I can't help but categorize her differently than most people. The way she dragged Sophia, her own cousin, off to the side to scold her about what she said was intrepid.

I begin to do different calculations in my head about how to make this work. Addie could come to my house and I could make sure I take my meds a good hour before she arrives. I could also avoid coming in contact with any sugar and make sure I get the full eight hours of sleep I need.

Yeah, I think I can do this.

"You don't mind?" I wonder aloud.

"Not at all," Addie babbles. "Oh my gosh – this is going to be fun. You could come over after school or I could go to your place or we could go to Starbucks. Don't worry, McCallister – you're gonna pass this course with flying colours."