A Million Miles Away(14)

Still open from her last visit, Michelle’s laptop had rewoken, the blue light from its screen bathing her desk. Michelle. It was a wild thought, too fast and strange to be real, as if she were a kid again, believing in ghosts.

Without bothering to turn on the light, Kelsey slipped into Michelle’s chair, found the green phone icon with the cursor, and clicked ANSWER.

Peter filled her screen clearly this time, no glitches. But he looked tired. Hollow.

“Michelle,” he said, breathing in and out as though he was sinking into a hot bath. “Michelle.”

“Hi,” she replied, and a smile grew on his face.

Kelsey couldn’t get the words out just yet. What would she say first? Michelle died. Or she could start with, I’m Kelsey, and go from there. She should ease into it.

“Why weren’t you on last night? Did you not get my email?”

Kelsey opened her mouth. I wasn’t on because… No. Michelle wasn’t on because… No, that wouldn’t work, either. Her thoughts were all mixed up.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You can’t do that to me. I was worried you’d started dating someone else or something.” Peter looked around the green tent, and leaned toward his screen. “I hate it here,” he said quietly.

Kelsey noticed the dark circles under his eyes. They didn’t match the relaxed way he said his words. People from out West, where his hometown was, often spoke lower and with a little bit of a drawl. Funny that he kept that, even as he was panicking. She would just give him a minute. Just another minute or two to relax. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“It’s hot. Of course, it’s hot.” He shook his head, smiling at her apologetically. “We carry our gear around everywhere, too. Fifty or so pounds of extra weight, all the time.”

“You’re not in immediate danger, though, right?”

Peter rubbed his hand over his hair, looking away. “You never can tell.” When he looked back at her, his arms twitched, as if he wanted to hug her. “There have been a few scares, but it’s quiet most of the time. More than most of the time.”

Peter looked down, and when he looked back up, he was smiling as broad as he could, trying to hide the fear that had risen up in his eyes. Kelsey knew that game. She played that game every day.

“It’s boring, really. So boring. I draw every day. I write you letters.”

“You write me… you write letters?” Kelsey hadn’t seen anything for Michelle in the mail for a while. Only college acceptance letters, which her mother had promptly thrown into the trash.

Peter shrugged. “I’ve only sent one. But I write you every day.”

Kelsey started to reply. Peter, there’s something you should know. That’s it. That’s what she would say.

But then he continued, “I write you in my head, too. As we walk around in the hills, and ride around to villages. I talk to everyone back home in my head. Is that insane?”

“It’s not insane,” Kelsey said quietly. She did that sometimes with Michelle, too.

Peter’s shoulders loosened. A happy, faraway look returned to his eyes. He didn’t communicate like any other boys she knew. He wasn’t shifty, or distracted. He thought long, and as he thought, his face was an open book.

“I always mean to write down what I say, but I forget,” he said. “I remember wanting to tell my dad about how the men sit around in barbershops and yell at the TV when they watch the Pakistani cricket team, just like he does. I think he would like that. I’ll have to remember that one.”

The mention of his father brought her back to reality. He would learn of Michelle’s death somehow, wouldn’t he? “Do you Skype with your family?”

“Sure, all the time.”

“Do they—” Kelsey paused. “Do they know about me?”

“They know I have a girlfriend but they don’t dig too deep into it. Said I shouldn’t be distracted.” He laughed to himself.

He was quiet then, looking at her. Kelsey was quiet, too. They were both lost.

Finally, he spoke. “I mostly write to you, though. I think about the different things I would tell my dad, what I would tell my mom, my sister. But I tell you everything. A lot of these guys are really…” He looked around the tent again, getting quieter. “A lot of these guys are really closemouthed, you know? I don’t have to talk all the time, but I’ve got to say something.”

Then Peter’s eyebrows knit together. “People are dying. No one I know, but we are going to have to…” Kelsey could see Peter’s jaw working, trying to hold back. It hung in the air, sinking into both of them. Kelsey speculated the end of his sentence. Kill people.

“Ugh.” He let out a sound, shaking his head. “I’m not allowed to talk about it, but, anyway,” he said.

She didn’t know what to say.

“Tell me what have you been up to. Distract me.”

Kelsey felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. “It doesn’t really seem important—”

“It’s very important,” Peter interrupted. Kelsey could tell he was determined to put all he had toward her, to forget. “How did finals go?”

Kelsey’s instinct was to answer terrible, as usual. But that was her, and Peter wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to Michelle. I’ll just let him have this. Just a little while longer until the right time comes.