Don’t Let Me Go(17)
He felt as though the sensation was melting him. Almost literally.
He sank to his knees, which made him just her height, and hugged her back. From the outside, he figured — hoped — it appeared as a deliberate move. In truth, his knees had simply melted.
“You said yes,” Grace said, in something bizarrely akin to a whisper. “Everybody else said no. That must mean you like me.”
“I do, actually,” Billy said, learning the information the exact moment he imparted it.
“What do you like about me?”
“You’re brave,” he said, pulling back from the embrace and holding her at arms’ length by her shoulders. Enough of any type of closeness was enough, especially for one day.
“How am I brave?”
“Well. You go outside.”
“Duh. Yeah, me and everybody else on the planet.”
“How about when you stopped those two big men fighting?”
“What two big men?”
“Jake Lafferty and Felipe Alvarez.”
Grace’s face lit up. She did not ask how he happened to come by that information, or even how he knew the names of all the neighbors he’d never met.
“Yeah. Wow. I guess I am brave, huh?”
She hit him again, another projectile hug.
“I knew you weren’t useless,” she whispered into his ear. Then, more loudly, “Well, see you tomorrow, Billy.”
And, with that, she marched out the door.
“Thank you,” Rayleen said, just before letting herself out.
She closed the door behind her, leaving Billy to ponder what he’d just gotten himself into. But there was really no dissecting it from the point of view of the present. Tomorrow would tell. Right at the moment there wasn’t much to be done about it. He’d said it, and that was that.
He decided to take a nap. He was feeling wrung out, and needed the rest.
? ? ?
Billy woke to a banging on his door.
He lay in bed for an extended moment, pulling the covers up tightly under his chin. But the banging repeated itself, startling him, even though this time he’d known to expect it.
He took a deep breath and accepted that there was only one way to make it stop.
He rose, delicately, and tiptoed through the living room to the door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Jake Lafferty, from upstairs.”
“Oh,” Billy said.
If he’d said more, the shaking in his voice would have come through too strongly, too obviously. It would have given him away, in a potentially dangerous manner, like a prey animal showing blood or a broken leg to its predator.
“I want to ask you one question. Before you start looking after that little girl.”
“OK,” Billy said, betraying his trembling, in spite of the brevity of his answer.
“Are you going to open the door, or what?”
“Probably not.”
“Any special reason why not?”
“I find you a little…threatening.”
“Ah, geez,” Lafferty said. “Which brings me back to my question. Are you a homosexual?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is it really that you didn’t hear the question?”
“No, not really. It’s more that I’m having trouble believing it.”
“Look. I got a right to ask, in this case. Because you’re going to be looking after that little girl. Right? And everybody knows homosexuals are more likely to be child-molesters. Otherwise it would just be your business. But that’s why I have to ask. Because everybody knows that.”
The room spun slightly around Billy’s head. He reminded himself to breathe, quickly, before he passed out.
“Um. No. Not really. Everybody doesn’t know that. Because it’s nowhere even close to the truth.”
“Are you kidding me? Then who do you figure is molesting all those little boys?”
“Um. A bunch of married guys about your age.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Just that you’re wrong. About pretty much everything.”
“I notice you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Let’s just say, for the sake of the argument,” Billy said, still openly trembling, “that you were right about everything. You’re not. But just for a second, let’s imagine a world where you were. Have you met Grace?”
“Of course I’ve met her.”
“Is she…a boy child? Or a girl child?”
“Oh,” Lafferty said. “Yeah, OK.”
Billy heard the first few of Lafferty’s footsteps as he headed down the hall, and then one word muttered under Lafferty’s breath. The word was, “Fruitcake.”
Billy went back to bed, in spite of his knowledge that the chance for more napping had long ago evaded him.
? ? ?
He lay awake for all but maybe forty-five minutes of that night. And, within that forty-five minutes, he felt himself surrounded, swallowed, by the beating of wings. Longer, whiter, more passionate than usual. A cacophony of wings.
? ? ?
“Who brought you home from school?” he asked Grace.
He sat perched on the very edge of his sofa, watching her look around his apartment. Watching her peer at all of his photos again, as if she hadn’t just examined them the previous day.