Read I Was Here for Free Online Page B

is back, sitting on the couch drinking a beer.
    “I thought you were leaving,” Tree says coolly.
    Alice tacks one of the cat flyers onto the bulletin board by the door, next to a large
     flyer for tomorrow’s Lifeline vigil. She explains how I’m trying to find homes for
     Pete and Repeat.
    Tree makes a face. “What, you have something against
kittens
?” I ask her.
    She wrinkles her nose. “It’s just Pete and Repeat. Those names. They’re so
gay
.”
    “I’m bisexual, and I don’t appreciate your derogatory use of
gay
,” Alice says, attempting to sound scolding but still somehow managing to sound chipper.
    “Well, sorry. I know they’re the dead girl’s cats, but the names are still gay.”
    When she says this, Tree seems less like a hippie than like one of the rednecks in
     our town. It makes me hate her both more and less.
    “What names do you prefer?” I ask.
    Without hesitating, she says, “Click and Clack. That’s what I call them in my head.”
    “And you think Pete and Repeat are bad?” Stoner Richard asks, appearing with a stained
     apron and a wooden spoon. “I think we should call them Lenny and Steve.”
    “Those aren’t cat names,” Alice says.
    “Why not?” Stoner Richard asks, holding up the spoon, the contents of which bear the
     strange odor of the kitchen. “Who wants a bite?”
    “What is it?” Tree asks.
    “Everything-in-the-fridge stew.”
    “You should add the cats,” Tree says. “Then she wouldn’t have to find homes for them.”
    “I thought you were a vegetarian,” Alice says acidly.
    Stoner Richard invites me to share his horrible concoction. It smells like the spices
     got into a rumble and everyone lost, though that’s not the reason I decline. I’m not
     used to company. I’m not sure when that happened. I used to have friends—not good
     ones, but friends—from school, from town. I used to be at the Garcias all the time.
Used to
seems far from where I am now.
    I leave the roommates to their meal and go into the kitchen for a drink. I bought
     a liter of Dr Pepper earlier and stowed it in the fridge, but Stoner Richard, in his
     zeal to cook, has moved everything, so I have to dig for it. And there, in the back,
     I find a couple of unopened cans of RC and my stomach drops out because the only person
     I’ve ever known to drink that is Meg. I fill an old Sonics cup with ice and RC. When
     I leave here, I don’t want to leave even the smallest part of her behind.
    I take my drink to the empty porch. But when I get there, I see the porch isn’t empty
     and I stop so suddenly, the drink sloshes out of the cup and onto my shirt.
    He’s smoking a cigarette, the cherry of it burning menacingly in the dim, gray twilight.
    I don’t know what surprises me most: that an email I sent actually had an impact.
     Or that he looks like he wants to kill me.
    I don’t give him the chance. I put my drink down on the porch railing and turn around
     and go upstairs, trying to take them slowly, trying to act calm. He’s here for the
     shirt, so I’ll get him the shirt. Throw it in his face and get him the hell out of
     here.
    I hear the sound of crunching gravel and then I hear him on the stairs behind me,
     and I’m not sure what to do, because if I call out for help then I look weak, but
     I saw that look in his eyes. It’s like he not only got my email but he got my hatred,
     too, and now it’s cycling back to me.
    I go into Meg’s room. His T-shirt sits on top of one of the piles where I left it.
     He’s followed me upstairs and is standing in her doorway. I hurl the shirt at him.
     I want him, every part of him, out of my space. But he just stands there. The shirt
     bounces off him and falls to the floor.
    “What the fuck?” he asks.
    “What? You wanted your shirt; there’s your shirt.”
    “What kind of person does that?”
    “What did I do? You said you wanted your T-shirt—”
    “Oh, cut the crap, Cody,” he interrupts. And it’s so startling