Now Is Not the Time to Panic(57)

“Hey,” I said after I rolled down the window.

He looked at me for a few seconds; I saw the flash of fear cross his face, but then he finally relaxed his posture. “Hey,” he finally said. “Hey, Frankie.”

“It’s been a really long time since I last saw you,” I said, and I wondered how it was possible for every single thing you said to sound so dumb, so weightless. I wanted to say, “I missed you,” but it wasn’t really true, I was now realizing. I missed teenage Zeke. This guy was a stranger. He was the person I had to talk to in order to get Zeke back. I got out of the car and walked over to him.

“It’s been twenty-one years,” he said. The last time I had been this close to him, my arm had been snapped nearly in half, my mouth bleeding, my whole world ruined. I could feel my heart beating so fast.

“Do you still go by Zeke or did you change it back or—”

“I go by Ben,” he said.

“It’s going to be really hard for me to call you that,” I admitted.

“It doesn’t matter,” he admitted, looking so sheepish. “You can call me whatever.”

“Can I come talk to you?” I asked. “It’s important.”

Just then, Zeke’s mom came onto the porch. She wasn’t smiling, but she didn’t look angry. She touched Zeke’s shoulder and he turned to look at her. And then, holy shit, his dad came out, walking with a cane, and asked Zeke if he was okay. I could not believe that they were still married. Or maybe they weren’t. Why was Zeke still living with them? I guessed I needed to get inside and maybe I’d find out. I did not like that the fact of his parents staying together was overwhelming my focus on Zeke. I waited for permission, because I wouldn’t come in if Zeke said no. I mean, I would later throw a rock through their window with a message that explained everything, but I would not go into their house without Zeke’s okay.

He took a deep breath, looked back at his parents, and then nodded. “Yeah, come on in,” he said.

“You were hard to find, honestly,” I said, still not moving, and he smiled for just a flash of a second, and I saw those weird teeth and it instantly made me happy, calmed me down, even though he went back to his deadpan look right after.

“I mean, kind of?” he said. “I’m in the house where I grew up. I didn’t leave.”

“Well, okay, but it was hard to find you online.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Did you not want people to find you?” I asked.

“No one is trying to find me,” he said, smiling again. “Except, you know, for you.”

“Well,” I said, “I found you.”

“You did.”

“Honey, maybe we can go inside?” his mom said, looking around as if a crowd were on the sidewalk watching us. “Hello, Frankie,” she said to me.

“Hi, Mrs. . . . well, hello. And, hello, Mr. Brown. I don’t know if you remember m—”

And the whole family laughed, a real laugh, over something so strange as the fact that I’d kicked him so freaking hard in the knee while his son had tried to murder him.

“I do remember you,” Mr. Brown said. “Very well.”

I looked at his cane, my eyes so wide, and he shook his head. “This was all later,” he admitted. “A stroke.”

“Oh,” I said, “good. I mean, not, you know, not good that you had . . . You look well, sir.” I turned back to Zeke. “Do you know why I’m here?” I asked. “Like, can you guess?”

“Jeez, Frankie, yeah, I can guess. Here, just . . . come inside.”

The whole family kind of awkwardly shuffled back into the house, and there was this moment when I realized that I could walk inside and Zeke and his parents could stuff me in a hidden room and the secret would stay a secret. But then I remembered my mom, all those cans of pepper spray, this address on her phone, and I knew I was safe.

“Frankie, would you like some coffee? A muffin?” his mom asked. This was the first time that his mother had ever talked to me.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I drank a Mountain Dew and ate some Pop-Tarts on the way here.”

“Pop-Tarts,” Zeke repeated, like he was slowly remembering me, like he had amnesia and my presence was bringing it all back. There was still something off about him, the delayed way he seemed to respond to me, but I felt like that was warranted. I had not seen him in so long and now here I was. All that time I’d dreamed of bringing him back, and he was right here. All that time I’d dreamed of bringing him back, I guess I’d never thought about how, really, it would be me returning to him, making myself known. It was all very weird. And that was comforting, as if weirdness was the thread that connected us, all we really knew of each other, the way we made each other feel like the rest of the world wasn’t real.

“Ben, should we leave you alone, or do you want us to stay?” Mr. Brown asked his son.

“Maybe . . . I think maybe we can be alone. I’ll let you know if I need you,” Zeke said.

“Or,” Zeke’s mom said, “maybe we should talk to Frankie first?” She nodded to her husband. “We could talk to her and see why she’s here and then we could tell you about it.”

That sounded utterly miserable to me, just so painful, and I prayed that Zeke would not do this. I didn’t want a chaperone. We had always been left alone. Although, shit, that had maybe not been a good idea.