Every Last Promise by Kristin Halbrook

grinned.
    â€œHey, Kayla, I think you’re off the hook for tutoring Steven. He’s going to be doing some extra-credit stuff with Coach.”
    Steven stood upright and wiped the back of his hand slowly across his mouth. When his eyes caught mine, I saw some mix of hard resilience and shame in them. Or maybe that was just my imagination. Maybe all that was really there was triumph. Or even nothing at all. It was just the way of things.
    â€œToo bad,” I said. “I was saving cleaning my mom’s chicken coop for you. Now I have to clean it myself.” I poked out my bottom lip.
    Jay pushed off with his hip and crossed the hall. Someone had drawn hearts and flowers and peace signs on the backof his left hand with a blue pen. A girl with a crush on him, probably. His abashed grin showed off his straight, white teeth.
    â€œSorry about that. Know what? We’ll do it anyway. Won’t we, Steve?” Jay nodded over his shoulder. “Coop’s on the side of the house, right? Just leave the supplies out for us and we’ll come after practice and get it cleaner than it’s ever been. It’s the least we can do since you were so cool about tutoring, right, man?”
    â€œAbsolutely.” Steven stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and nodded.
    I wanted to feel irritated. Most of the time, the football program’s weight tossing around here didn’t affect me. But I also really didn’t want to muck out the coop.
    As Jay snaked his arm across my shoulders and nodded at a couple of cheerleaders passing by, I debated. Did I want to make a point, say something that would piss Jay off, or did I want to let it go, knowing anything I said wouldn’t matter anyway? I reached into my bag and fidgeted with the edge of a notebook. At least he’d offered to clean the coop.
    I blew out a huff of air. “I’ll leave the cleaning stuff out for you. I expect it to be sparkling, though.”
    â€œYou’re a cool girl, Kayla. We’ll dedicate next season to you or something.” Jay squeezed my shoulders.
    I made a dismissive noise and went off to hang out on the hill.

FALL
    I FLIP OVER ONTO my stomach, drop my arm down so that my fingers graze the floor, and look around my bedroom. It’s a mess and I still haven’t gotten out of bed, even though Dad’s been in the field for hours by now.
    Mom made breakfast. I know because I could smell it, because I heard her when she came upstairs and opened my door, prepared to invite me down. I wasn’t sleeping. I just pretended to be.
    Without riding practice, my weekends are wide open. At my aunt’s, I’d head to the park a few blocks from her house and lie on the grass for hours. Or I’d go downtown and explore, trying to make a map of the city in my head. Anything to take up mind-space. Here, though, after chores, there’s little else to do. But that doesn’t mean I want to stay in bed all day. My toes wiggle on the cold wood floor as I get up and get dressed.
    Downstairs, Mom is organizing jam in the pantry. I open the dishwasher and start to unload clean dishes.
    â€œWhat does Dad want me to do today?” I say to Mom’s back.
    She pulls her head out of the pantry to peek at me. “Thanks for unloading that. But I don’t think he’s expectingyou out there today. You should take a couple of weeks off. Settle back in. Your Aunt Bea called this morning and I told her you’re taking it easy. Don’t want to make a liar out of me, do you?”
    I think about the third text Bea had sent last night, after Noah Michaelson dropped me off. She asked me to call her to check in. “What else did you tell her?”
    I hear a canister of something small—beans or rice—shift. “I told her your nightmares don’t seem to be giving you trouble.” Another canister slides across a shelf. I never talked to my parents about the nightmares, so Aunt Bea must have