If I Tell

pretty new around here. I mean, I don’t have a lot of people to talk to. So, if you ever want to talk more, I’m game.”
    I laughed. “I don’t normally talk very much.”
    “Maybe you just never had the right person to talk to.”
    A car honked behind us, and we both glanced back, surprised to see someone had pulled up behind us.
    “Chill,” Jackson said to the driver behind him as if he could hear. He looked at me and laughed. “What’s with the face?”
    “No face,” I said. He was easy to talk to, but I’d also consumed more alcohol this one night than the rest of my life combined. “It’s just that I haven’t got a lot of friends. Especially male ones.”
    “No? Well, their loss. How about a rain check?” he pulled away from the stop sign. “You ever want to talk, there’s no expiration date. Just let me know. Cool?”
    Knowing I’d never take him up on it, I nodded. “Sure.”
    Jackson turned his car down my street then, and when I pointed to my house, he pulled in front. He shifted the car into park and idled.
    I undid my seat belt and reached for the door. Before I opened it, I swallowed hard and let out a big breath. “Um. Thanks. For getting my shoes. And for the ride. You saved me in more ways than one.” I handed his hoodie back to him.
    “Take it,” he told me. “It’s cold outside.”
    “No. It’s okay.”
    “I insist. And please keep being weird and playing Neil Diamond on your guitar.”
    He smiled, and I hugged the hoodie tight and then tugged on the door handle. “You know, you’re not really the bad boy everyone says you are.”
    He laughed again, and it sounded like a horn. Weird, but somehow the geeky laugh made me like him a little more.
    “Don’t be so sure,” he said. “But I’ll take that as a compliment.” He grinned.
    I pulled his hoodie close to fight off the cold and inhaled the hoodie’s smell. Boy smell. I liked it.
    “You really did go to juvie for drug dealing?” I asked.
    He lifted a shoulder. He didn’t look proud or sorry. Accepting maybe. “Some rumors are true, I guess.”
    “I guess.” I slammed the door behind me and wanted to climb back inside his car almost immediately. Mistakes seemed easier to forgive in there. I wondered if he was in danger of going back to juvie. I didn’t want him to leave.
    Instead of opening the car door to ask him or beg him to stop, I headed up the driveway. Back to real life.
    Where mistakes mattered.

chapter six
    Sitting up made my head feel like it might explode, so I rolled over and reached for the phone beside my bed. For the first time, I called in sick to work. At least it wasn’t another lie. Inhaling coffee fumes all day would have made me throw up
    I also couldn’t risk Nathan showing up at Grinds and giving me knowing looks. I’d rather die alone in my room than face him. I rolled over on top of a lump and grabbed it, pulling it out from under the covers. Jackson’s hoodie. Mortified at all the babbling I’d done with him, I nonetheless sniffed the hoodie, hugged it, and lay back down, falling back to sleep with my arms around it.
    “Jasmine. You can’t sleep all day. It’s way past noon.” Grandma poked her head in my room, but she didn’t come inside. Her voice woke me from a sleepless dream. It could have been hours or minutes later.
    “Flu,” I croaked and made a pitiful face. I peeked at the clock beside my bed. It was almost two.
    Grandma lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “Flu, my butt,” she said in a most un-old-lady-like way. “Get up.” She closed the door quietly behind her.
    I groaned, not wanting to wake up and face myself and what I’d done the night before. I stared at the posters on my wall. Johnny Cash. Janis Joplin. Neil Diamond. They all stared down at me as if asking the same question.
    What would Neil do?
    Well, for sure he wouldn’t have gotten into such a mess, making out with Nathan and needing to be rescued shoeless by Jackson.
    I closed my eyes and tried thinking about the song lyrics I’d been working on for the past few days. Usually writing songs in my head soothed me, but my brain hurt too much to concentrate.
    Outside my room I heard the landline ring, and a few minutes later the door opened.
    “Your mom called,” Grandma said, stepping through the doorway. “She told me she’s been asking you out for dinner with Simon, and you keep making excuses.” She crossed her arms, pulling her rose cardigan around her tiny body. “I told her