16
The next morning, I convinced Mom to let me go downtown to a coffee shop to meet Marcie, Nicole, and Javier. I had invited Blanch along after swearing him to secrecy via text the night before, and so she caved, nervously.
“I guess you could use some time to just relax with your friends. Okay, but I want you to text me every half hour.”
“Okay, Mom. But no one will know where I am except you and my friends. I’ll be totally fine.”
“That’s what you said about school.”
She had a point.
We all met at ten a.m. at the coffee shop on Main Street in Lexington. Everyone got their various skinny, tall, mocha-choca beverages and sat down at a corner table. Blanch insisted on facing the wall and putting me between him and the corner—a request which made Javier twitch until he took the chair bes
