Don’t Let Me Go(89)

“No, it isn’t! Why would you even say that, Billy? You shouldn’t say everything’s fine when it isn’t!”

She pushed past him and into his living room and hoisted herself up on to his couch. Billy closed the door and sighed.

“Don’t you even want somebody to be with you until you’re done being all scared, and you’re ready to go back to sleep? When I have a bad dream, I run get in bed with Rayleen, and she strokes my forehead, and she asks me what the dream was about, and then she says, ‘Poor Grace, never mind, Grace, it was just a dream, and dreams can’t hurt you.’ Don’t you want somebody to do that for you?”

Tears sprang to Billy’s eyes, but he held them in as best he could. Yes, he did want that. Had all his life. He had just never known it existed until that very moment.

“OK,” he said, and sat down with her on the couch.

“What did you dream?”

“I dreamed there were these wings all around me, these really huge white wings.”

“Like bird wings?”

“Not like any bird wings I ever saw.”

“Like angel wings?”

“I don’t know. I never saw an angel. I don’t think so. Because I think if they were angel wings they’d be comforting. These aren’t comforting. I dream about them all the time, but usually they flap. And it’s very disturbing, the way they flap. This is the first time they ever held still.”

“Oh,” Grace said. “Then why were you yelling at them to flap?”

“Oh. You heard that. Well. Because…I’m not sure. I can’t really explain it. It’s like you know something bad is going to happen, and the suspense is too much. It’s almost better to just get it over with. But I’m not sure if you know what I mean. Maybe you just had to be there.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Grace said. “Dreams are like that. They’re not usually very understandable.”

Grace pulled up to her knees on the couch and stroked Billy’s forehead.

“Poor Billy, it was just a dream, Billy. Never mind about that dream because dreams can’t hurt you.”

“Thank you,” he said, fighting tears again.

“You’re welcome. I think I’m gonna go back to bed. Can I sleep on your couch? Oh, no, wait. Rayleen would get scared cause I was gone. I better get back.”

“I’ll be OK,” Billy said.

“I know you will, cause dreams can’t hurt you.”

She padded across his rug to the door, opened it wide, then stood still with both hands on the knob.

“I just want to tell you something,” she said. “I just want to tell you I’ll always find you. You might not be able to find me, but I know how to find you. So, wherever I go, if I do, which I hope I don’t, but if I do, and Rayleen can’t get me back again…cause, you know, I keep saying she can, but every time I say it everybody looks a little green and funny, so if maybe that doesn’t work out, just remember I’ll always find you, even if I have to grow up to be eighteen first. Cause you’re my very best friend.”

She pulled the door closed behind her with a small muffled thump.

Billy stayed up the rest of the night, watching TV, all the lights on. Because he knew the wings were out there. And that they’d wait for him. And that they would — or would not — flap.





Grace



It was about a quarter after seven in the evening, and Grace was sitting cross-legged on Rayleen’s rug, watching TV. She liked to watch from close up. It made her feel more a part of the world she was watching, as if she could get into somebody else’s life for real. She was watching that show she liked the best, the one with the four grown-up guys trying to raise one little boy, who always managed to run the household, even though he was only about three feet tall. It was a funny show, and usually she laughed out loud, but something was off that night. In fact, she missed most of the lines by going away someplace in her head, but then later, when something brought her back — like when she heard Rayleen laugh behind her — she couldn’t quite figure where she’d been.

She turned around to see Jesse and Rayleen holding hands on the couch, but their hands came apart again the minute she looked at them.

“You can hold hands in front of me, you know. It doesn’t have to be this big secret.”

Rayleen looked over at Jesse and he looked back. Like they were picking who had to talk next, but without making any sound.

“It’s just…” Rayleen began.

But she didn’t make it far before she sort of…ran out of gas.

“That I’m a kid.”

“No. It’s just that this is so new.”

“So? At least somebody’s story is turning out right.”

“But we don’t know how it’s going to turn out. That’s just the thing. When it’s new, you want to kind of keep it to yourself until—”

But Grace held up a hand to cut her off.

“Wait! I think I hear Yolanda!”

Grace ran to the door and pressed her ear to it, then ran to the kitchen and lay on the floor, one ear against the cool linoleum.

“I can’t hear anything,” she said.

She looked up to see Rayleen holding a hand down to her.