WAKE (Wattpad edition)

3. Do you know about Jon?

*Playlist: 'Brighter days' - JJ Grey & Mofro.

{Kadee}

Kadee kept swiping the screen of her phone to check if it was on. No messages. She braided and unbraided her hair, trying to decide. She could just go over to Kurtis' place. That's where everyone was. No one was answering her texts, but she could just drop in. She'd done it before. When she'd been Kurtis' girlfriend.

She got up and shoved her phone in her pocket. She was going to go crazy if she had to sit in her room, alone, for one more hour, waiting for someone to message her back.

She went for a drive to get a Frappuccino and some perspective. She found herself cruising aimlessly in the rundown neighbourhood west of her, and then down the street with a certain row of shabby brown duplexes. She parked across the street, looking at Jon's house. He probably wasn't home, but she could just ring the bell and see. Of all her friends who were around for the summer, Jon was the one who was most likely to still find a smile for her.

The clatter of hammers startled her when she got out of the car. Over the low peak of Jon's house, she could see a couple men in the air, working on the roof of a new garage. No one answered the bell, so she went around the side of the house to see if one of the guys was Jon.

Pastor Pete was coming down a ladder leaning against the side of the garage. His bearded face was flushed, and his shirt was off, tucked into the back of his shorts. He was totally old and furry, but he had a surprisingly decent set of abs. Kadee giggled and looked away.

"Son, I'm going in to make us some lemonade!" Pete called up.

Kadee crossed the grass, giving him her shiniest smile. "I'm just here to see him—can I go up?"

Pete's eyebrows lifted and his mouth laughed back at her. "Be my guest."

She had clambered up to the level of the roof when Pete called up: "Cary, you got company!"

The smack-smack-slam of the hammer abruptly went silent, and Kadee's mouth rounded at her mistake.

Cary came over the peak of the roof, leaning against the incline. He had a ball cap jammed over his unruly hair, and his broad shoulders were bare, pink with sunburn. His work boots clomped down the rear side of the roof, and he snatched his T-shirt off the stack of shingles on the corner.

"Um," Kadee said. She couldn't help watching the way the muscles on his body flexed when he pulled his shirt on. "Sorry. When he said...I thought you were Jon."

He flicked her a flat look. "Don't come up here in those shoes. You'll break your neck."

She backed down the ladder, her stomach sinking. She felt like she was stuck in mid-air, no gravity, no direction, and if she couldn't find something to hold onto, she might fly apart. Now that she was here, she realized how badly she wanted Jon to be here too, to go somewhere with him to hang out— somewhere other than Kurtis' cave of a garage. She stepped away onto the grass, tugging the end of her braid through her fingers, trying to decide what to do.

The ladder rattled noisily behind her as Cary climbed down in big steps. She took a breath and turned. "Do you know where Jon is? He's not answering my texts."

"Thought he was with you." Cary took his work gloves off and shoved them in his pocket, looking sideways at her. "He went with friends from church. Your boyfriend and the rest."

She had one of the hairs at the base of her hairline wrapped around her finger, and she tugged it out, the little pop of pain making the colors brighter in the yard. "He's not my boyfriend. Anymore. We broke up. So. We're still friends and everything, but—"