Better Off Friends Read Free Page B

knife. Macallan looked between the knife and vegetables like she was trying to solve a difficult equation. She held the knife to the pepper, first one way, then another.
    At one point she looked up at me, probably hoping for help. Like I had any clue about cooking. I’d almost burned our house down microwaving popcorn the past year. It had smelled like charred popcorn for over a week. I’d been wisely banned from the kitchen ever since.
    “Is there a certain way you want them cut?” she asked Mom.
    Mom opened her mouth and then it was like I saw a lightbulb go on over her head. She went over to Macallan and showed her the different ways to cut everything. Macallan’s green eyes were watching everything like she was gonna be graded on it.
    “Thanks,” she said quietly when they were through. “There isn’t a lot of cooking at my house. Anymore.”
    It was then that I realized why Macallan was enamored with Mom. It was Emily who’d told me about the car accident — Macallan hadn’t really said much about her mom to me. And I had no clue if I should’ve said something to her. Or asked. Like, what do you do in that circumstance?
    Blimey if I knew.

    Even though I was quickly becoming friends with Macallan and her group, I still felt like I needed some dudes in my life.
    “What’s up, California?” Keith came up to me after class in early November. “How’s it hanging, bro?” But he said it like brah . I knew he was making fun of how I talked, but had he never heard himself? Everybody here had these nasally accents and overpronounced their vowels. I found it hilarious. “Saw you running ’round the track at gym. You’re pretty fast.”
    “Thanks, man.”
    I debated bragging to him that I was faster when it wasn’t so cold. Even though the snow from the first snowstorm of the year (which happened before Halloween) had melted, it was still freezing outside.
    Part of me had already written off Keith and his group … and still I felt a little excited as Keith continued. “Yeah, maybe you could join our game sometime. Wide receiver or something. Do they even play football in La-La Land?” He laughed.
    I decided to throw it right back at him. “I don’t know, man. Ever heard of this little thing called the Rose Bowl? Probably not, since the Badgers haven’t won it in years.”
    “Ouch.” But Keith looked impressed.
    I was a little rusty with the guy put-downs. Back in California, my buddies and I would spend hours ragging on each other, our families, the girls we liked. You name it. The bigger the put-down, the bigger the laugh. It was our own art form.
    “Okay, California.” Keith nodded to himself. “I guess I’ll see you around. Don’t let those chicks start braiding your hair or doing your nails. Real men play football.”
    “Yeah, totally.” We did this awkward handshake thing that made me feel even more like a tool. But hey, at least he was talking to me. That was a start.

    I could tell right away that Macallan was not in a good mood after school. Mom had a meeting that was running late, so we had to walk the twenty minutes to my house. She hardly talked to me during the walk and didn’t even want to stop in Riverside Park. We always would stop in the park and goof around whenever we walked to my place. Even if it was cold out. But apparently not that day.
    “Are you okay?” I finally asked her, mostly because the silence was super awkward.
    She was all “Yeah, no … I don’t feel well.”
    I saw her holding her stomach. I hoped she wasn’t going to blow chunks in front of me.
    Once we got home, she sat there. She didn’t talk, she didn’t want to watch TV, she didn’t want anything to eat. She didn’t even crack open a book to study. That’s when I knew things were serious.
    I started playing a couple video games; she silently watched from the couch. “Man, I tell you …” I looked at her and saw that she didn’t look so great. I figured there was only one thing that could