Don’t Let Me Go(99)

Billy surprised himself by laughing. Or, actually, something between a snort of laughter and a cry of pain. It wasn’t only his nose he’d hit, it was his ribs, too. But he hadn’t shared that with anybody yet. For some reason he wanted that to be his little secret. At least until the more obvious wounds had been assimilated.

“Well, good,” Jesse said. “Good to know it was only you, and not on purpose. Now I don’t have to kick anybody’s ass for hurting my friend Billy. Not even yours. So, what else did you bang up? Your ribs?”

Oh, my God, Billy thought. He really is magic. He’d heard Grace say so, but had assumed she was speaking figuratively.

“How in God’s name did you know that?”

“It wasn’t hard. I could hear how much it hurt you to try to laugh. Now come on. Let’s see.”

He moved to lift Billy’s sweater, and Billy exploded.

“No!” he shouted. “No,” he said again, gathering calm around himself like an old blanket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. But no. I don’t want to be seen like this.”

Jesse took his hands back, and they sat in silence for a moment.

“OK, fine. Here,” Billy said, and raised the sweater himself.

Jesse looked, and Billy looked at the same time. He hadn’t looked yet. There had always been somebody around, somebody who was already too worried. It was bad. Worse than he thought. A road map in black and blue. His head ached imagining how it would look in the morning, or in three days. Well. His head ached anyway.

Meanwhile Jesse’s hands moved in the direction of his naked, unguarded torso.

“I just want to feel around and see if anything’s broken.”

“No,” Billy said. But this time he was careful to keep it to a whisper. “No, please don’t touch me. I mean, putting your hand on my shoulder is one thing. But not that. I couldn’t bear it. I love you and I just couldn’t bear it.”

He could feel a tingling sensation along his scalp, a sort of tangible feedback from the words he had just spoken.

He noticed his eyes were squeezed shut, but could not remember closing them. He heard Jesse’s hands rubbing together, and he waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Except that, in a few moments, he felt a sort of warm tingling in the area of his damaged midsection.

“Are you doing reiki on my ribs?” he asked, eyes still shut.

“I am. Is that OK?”

“Yes. It’s fine. Thank you.”

He received the blessing in silence for what might have been several minutes.

“It seems to be helping not just with the pain in my ribs. It seems to be helping a little with the anxiety. Not like it isn’t there any more. More like it isn’t stuck. Like a chunk of it wants to move up and out of me.”

“Let it,” Jesse said.

Oh, God. That voice.

“I don’t know if I can go on Monday,” Billy said.

He still did not open his eyes.

“But you have to,” Jesse said. “You have to, for Grace. And you know that. So I know you will. Because you promised her, and she’s depending on it.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“I think you have to anyway.”

“Literally can’t.”

“Not sure there’s any such thing,” Jesse said.

“See, this is why I was by myself all those years. Because as soon as you let people in, they start depending on you. And then, if you can’t be everything they think you should be, you’ve let them down. It’s easier not to have anybody around at all.”

“Too late, though. You got Grace already. Like it or not. So, look. Try this on for size. Let’s say I’m magic like Grace thinks, and I can wave my wand and make Grace disappear from your life. Retroactively. Like she never existed for you. Then you don’t have to go to her school on Monday. Want me to do it?”

He tried it on. Amazingly. He was in so deep, feeling so desperate, that he actually tried it on for size. Disappearing Grace.

“No,” Billy said. “Don’t disappear her.” He sighed. Jesse was right. He was stranded. “I can’t stand to be seen in public looking like this.”

“Hat and sunglasses.”

“I don’t own a hat or sunglasses.”

“I do.”

“And there’s another thing. I haven’t been inside a school since I was in school. And it was the most dreadful, most traumatic era of my entire life, and I just have to add here: that’s a tough competition to win. And I think I’m going to freak out when I get inside. I think I never should have shot off my mouth and said I could do this. I thought I could learn to walk her to school, but now look what happened. Look what happens when you go out in the world.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I see. The world gave you a bloody nose. It’ll do that from time to time.”

His eyes still closed, Billy felt the energy from Jesse’s hands move to his forehead, eyes and nose.

“So how do I get back up?”

“With help from your friends. There’s an upside to having people depend on you. Life turns around, and then you get to depend on them. You get to say, ‘I’m in over my head and I need your help.’”

“I could never say that to anybody.”