“Yeah, but…”
That’s it. That is so it. I get up. She reaches for me.
“Eddie, wait—”
I can’t even look at her. I can’t do this right now. I leave the room. I leave the house. I’m always leaving, but I never have anywhere to go.
Beth gives me the most disgusted look when I step through the door; I’m still in the bikini I borrowed from Jenna. That’s a crime, I guess. She has one of those nature CDs on. It sounds like a thunderstorm. That is probably not a coincidence.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s upstairs.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
I find a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water, my back to Beth. I hope she’s looking at me. I hope she’s seeing how young I am, how perfect I am in all the right places while her skin is turning into one giant problem area. Cellulite and stretch marks and wrinkles.
“And whose fault is that?”
“What do you want from me?” I face her. “You don’t want me here while you help her, so you tell me to leave. I leave. I come back and you give me shit—”
She slams her hand on the table and the sound makes me jump.
“I’ve had enough of your attitude! I’m not an idiot, Eddie. I know what you’re thinking when you give me those looks. You don’t want me here, that’s fine. But I am. You could cooperate more. You could say thank you—”
“You could leave me alone—”
“I am trying to keep this household together!” She actually shrieks it and then she pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to collect herself. Cleansing breaths. “And that requires a certain level of organization. I need you to be present in some ways and absent in others so I can pull your mother out of this and then we’ll deal with what’s left—”
“You mean me,” I interrupt.
“Your mother needs it now,” she snaps, and my heart stops because I think she just told me my pain was less than my mother’s, but I cannot get my mouth to move to ask her. “Don’t look at me like that, Eddie. I don’t understand where you’re coming from half of the time—”
“Side effect of aging,” I suggest.
“Why can’t you just be mature about—”
“Maybe your brain cells are dying.”
“You know, your father would hate that you’re talking to me like this.”
I see red. I see it. Everything goes red, a red door, and I throw the glass I’m holding into the sink. It breaks. It’s not some spectacular shatter into a thousand pieces, it just goes into two pieces. The cracking sound it makes is so fucked up—how loud it is.
The quiet it creates.
“Would he?” I ask her, my voice trembling. “You think? Really?”
Beth starts to cry, and as cutting as the sound is when it comes out of my mother, it’s so surprising, so awful coming from her. I want to ask her if she misses him too. But I can’t.
I don’t know what to do.
“Go,” she says. “Get out of my sight.”
I go upstairs. I shut the door to my bedroom and sink down to the floor and my hands are shaking, cold. I pinch them. I can still feel them. Just cold. This is awful. This is so hopeless. We’re all lost in different ways, so how do we even help each other find our way out. We won’t. We can’t. We’ll just stay lost forever.
It’s eleven when I get the text from Milo. This is the longest day of my life.
OUTSIDE. UNDER THE STREETLIGHT.
I text him back.
FUCK OFF.
I wait a minute, and then:
WALKED ALL THE WAY FROM J’S FOR YOU.
FUCK OFF.
YOU COULD’VE TOLD ME YOU WERE LEAVING.
I toss my phone on my bed. I’m wearing a tank top and underwear. I guess I should scale down the roof in more than that. I put on a pair of shorts, open the window, and climb over the sill. Déjà vu. It’s been too long since I’ve been to Tarver’s. Maybe I should try for the roof again. Maybe I’m strong enough to do it now, just from meeting Culler. The first time I went to Tarver’s, I imagined there was something real on that roof. A reason. Answers.
I haven’t been able to let that thought go.
I jump down. I land. I spot Milo under the streetlight across the road and feel really embarrassed about telling him to fuck off twice, about ditching him at Jenna’s, because I have a feeling Missy probably freaked at him about it. When I reach him, I can smell pot and booze and he seems a little far away, but he’s not wasted, though. I’ve seen Milo wasted.
“You could’ve told me you were leaving,” he repeats.
“You could’ve told me Missy had a boyfriend back in Pikesville,” I return. He has the decency to look embarrassed. “Why did you lie?”
“I don’t know,” he says, and I move to go back to the house but he grabs my arm. “I’m serious, Eddie. I don’t know why I let you think that.”
“And she said you told her what happened, that night at Tarver’s, but you don’t tell me.” My voice breaks, already. Embarrassing, but these words are hard to say to him. “But you told her about it—”
“I just told her once—”
“So tell me once—”
“Stop fucking asking!—” Explosion. He’s yelling at me. “Seriously. I don’t know how many times I can tell you I don’t want to talk about it before you get it!”
I take a step back and his eyes widen, like he can’t believe he did that, but I can and that just makes it worse.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean…”
But he did.
We stand apart from each other.
“I hate you,” I tell him.
“No, you don’t.”
But he’s so wrong. I hate him for this so much it hurts. I will hate him for this forever. It will fester between us until I can’t stand to be around him, and maybe he’ll finally tell me then, but it will be too late, because I’ll never be able to forget this feeling. I’ll never forget how he kept it from me and how bad that made me feel.
“You hate me,” I say.
“No,” he says. “Never…”
And then he stares past me, to my house.
“Remember that time I ran away?” he asks.
I do; instantly. It was the third grade. We can’t remember what he was so mad about that he decided he’d Leave Branford and Show Them All anymore, but we both think it must’ve been stupid because it was the third grade.
“I hid out at your place,” he says. “Your dad called my parents so they knew where I was. I told him I was leaving and I was taking you with me and he said it was fine, remember? And he asked you if that was okay, and you said it was and he said okay…”
I want to tell Milo the saddest part of remembering this is that I’m remembering my dad the way he looked now—older than he was then. In my head, his impending suicide shows over the face of the person he pretended to be. I think that means my memories of him are ruined.
“But later, when we were alone, you started bawling because you didn’t want to leave your parents. So I told you to stay, and then you got even more upset—like it was the end of the world. You said you wouldn’t let me go by myself. You wouldn’t. You didn’t.” He pauses. “In the second grade, I felt like I got stuck with you … but … after that it was different.”
I don’t know what to say.
“And … then your dad died and it was … it was different again.” He swallows. “Eddie, I don’t know how I…”
I don’t know what he’s saying.
And then he kisses me.
He kisses me.
He brings his hand to my face and he kisses me, his mouth on mine, and I feel a door closing, something locking me in my head so all I can do is think things while it’s happening. It’s like my lips are dead and my brain is on, but it’s short-circuiting. My best friend mouth Missy hands cold dumb idiot second grade mouth Culler best friend Milo Milo Milo Milo Milo …
His lips press against my lips and his palms lie gently against the side of my face. His hands are warm. My hands are cold. His hands move to my hair. I kiss him back and regain the ability to think in full sentences and I regret it immediately: What does this mean? How can he kiss me? How can he kiss me? How can he kiss me? Oh my God, he’s kissing me.
It’s too much.
I pull away at the same time I completely change my mind. I don’t want it to stop and I almost bring my hands to him, to make him close to me again, but I think the moment is really over.
Did that happen? It didn’t …
“Sorry,” I blurt out. Why am I apologizing? He’s the one who kissed me. I feel like I’m going to cry. Why does this make me want to cry. “I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay,” he says, and then he kisses me again and it is infinitely different from the first time, like all the years of our knowing each other are in this kiss and he would know how to kiss me just by knowing me … and I think Culler again but the thought is quieter—
But it’s not quiet enough.
“Milo,” I say against his mouth, and he kisses me again and gives me space enough to talk, but we’re still so close our foreheads are touching. And now that I have space enough to talk, I don’t know what to say. “I can’t. I really—I can’t—”
“It’s okay,” he says. “We can go back from this.”
It comes out of his mouth so kind—he means it—and it just makes me feel worse. That he can kiss me like this and change everything, but still promise me nothing has to change because I can’t promise him anything.
“It’s not you—” Except it is. But it’s this other guy too. But I’m smarter than saying that. And oh, my father is dead. And you keep things from me that I need to know.