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Remy

The trash smells disgusting. “God, did something crawl in there and die?” my friend Clara says beside me as I wheel the trashcan out to the curb. She’s stayed over for horror movie night, a monthly tradition we’ve held since we were twelve.

I hold my breath, face scrunched up tight. “Yeah, whatever that thing was my mom tried to feed us last night.”

“What was that?” Clara says.

“Tofu.”

“Is that some kind of bird, because if it is, it should be hunted until it’s extinct.”

I laugh. Poor Clara. Her family is strictly meat and potatoes. She never even saw a Brussel sprout until we met. She thought it was the cutest little baby cabbage until she actually tried it. Now she calls them devil warts.

“It’s made from soy beans, I think.”

a mist curling off the cement as the day warms up. The sky, with its layers of vibrant orange and

sprint across the lawn in bare feet to get to the newspaper before it’s ruined. No matter how many times my mom complains, the guy who delivers our newspaper always tosses it onto the lawn

into Sam’s—my neighbor’s—driveway. But my neighbor drives a Toyota Prius, so I know it’s not him, unless he got a new car. With his office geek appearance, he doesn’t really seem

off and it takes a minute for the driver to exit the vehicle. Then Deacon steps

god,” I say,

turns toward my neighbor’s house. “Holy

is. Don’t stare!” I grab her by the shoulders

we’re talking,” I

“We are talking.”

being obvious I’m staring,” I say

grumbles. “Fine. But hurry up. It’s

is Sam’s brother. He used to own the house, then sold it to Sam after he married. I remember sitting in my old tree house, watching as he loaded his boxes into the U-Haul, half tempted to go next door and put each box back in the house so he

looks just as amazing as he did back then. A little more mature, maybe, and thicker with muscle than I remember. Clearly that confident swagger never went away. That’s easy to tell even at this distance as he

not easy to see is what’s in the back seat of the truck. I squint to see better. Is that the top of

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