You'd Be Home Now (83)

I push away from him.

There are a bunch of kids staring at me.

“If anybody knows where Joey is, please tell me,” I say. “He’s my brother.”

Heads shake, people back away.

So awful, someone murmurs as I walk away. So horrible.

Like Joey is already dead.

    I sit in my classes like a ghost. The teachers give me sad looks. Daniel and Liza and Jeremy are quiet with me at lunch. They repost Joey’s photo on their own social feeds.

In Drama Club, Simon Stanley touches my shoulder in a kind way. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” he says.

“I don’t know if I can do the variety show,” I say.

“I understand. If you change your mind, let me know.”

The gentleness in his eyes makes me want to cry.

When my dad comes to pick me up, I ask him if we can wait awhile before driving home.

“Why?”

I twist my fingers together. “Please don’t get mad, but I called his counselor at Blue Spruce. There was this day, after Joey came home from rehab, and he was having a hard time and he called him, the counselor. Shadow. That’s his name. And Shadow wanted to talk to me. He said I could call him anytime.”

My dad shakes his head. “I’m not mad. I hadn’t thought of that. Of calling them. That was a good decision, Emmy.”

“Anyway, he said to just keep coming to school and stuff, because maybe Joey would show up here. So maybe we should sit here for a little bit. In case he comes here. He’d know I’d be getting out of Drama Club right about now, you know?”

My dad turns off the car.

“Yes, we can wait, Emmy. We can wait for a little bit.”

We sit in the car until it’s dark out and the lot lights pop on, yellowy and harsh, but Joey doesn’t come.

Then my father starts the car and we drive home.





35


MY DAD SITS IN his den, making more flyers. My mom has gone to sleep and Nana is nodding off on the couch, Fuzzy in her lap. I’m awake. I haven’t done any homework or eaten and I don’t care. I’m just sitting with my phone, endlessly typing words.

Texting Joey.


Please come home I miss you I love you Come back Please come back home





36


WHEN I GET THE mail the next afternoon, there’s a letter addressed to me from Arizona, but no name. I’m so excited to open it because it might be Joey, of course it could be, maybe it’s possible he drove all the way there, right? Anything could be possible.

I almost rip the letter in half opening it.

But the letter isn’t from Joey.

    Dear Emory,

I know you probably don’t want to hear from me, but I needed to write this letter. First, I want you to know that I didn’t share those pictures. I never showed them to anyone else. I forgot to delete them. I should have done that right away when you asked, but I forgot. I just forgot. I’m sorry for that. Roly Martin found my phone on the field and he is the one who shared the photos. I am really sorry for the embarrassment and trouble that caused.

I’m in Arizona at the physical rehabilitation center. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here or even whether it will work. I’m not mad about it, even though my parents and the whole thing about your mom paying for this might make it seem that way. I hope everything works out, but I have to face that it might not.

     I don’t really want to talk about myself here. I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for what happened with us. I’m not sorry for knowing you and how we were together, but I’m sorry for leading you on. I did things the wrong way. I didn’t ever want to hurt you. I just want you to know that.

Your friend, Gage



Your friend.

I keep staring at those words. His handwriting is shaky. I guess he used his left hand, since his right arm is messed up. Maybe it hurts him too much to write with it.

I think of the way his hands felt on me, soft and sometimes tentative and sometimes sure, and the way I felt all sorts of things: electric and seen and full of pleasure. How I would have done anything for that feeling, and did.

I wish I could feel that way now, to make all the awfulness inside me go away.

But I can’t. I just have to sit here, and feel all of it. Every last horrible thing.





37


LIZA MUNCHES HER SLICE of pizza. “I’m just not feeling it,” she says. “You seem wooden.”

“You think?” I answer.

Daniel leans back in the recliner in my room. “I have to say I agree. No offense, but your presentation needs work.”

“No,” Jeremy says, looking up from his comic book. “She’ll be fine. The right lighting and costume, that can all help. I can do that part. That’s my specialty. The little touches.”

I throw the Ophelia monologue on my bed. “I can’t do this.”

“You can,” says Liza.

“I can’t. For one thing, I’m not good at public speaking, and two, I kind of have other things on my mind at the moment, if you haven’t forgotten.”

They all look at each other.

“Think of it as a respite,” Daniel says. “Something to do to let your mind rest a little. You could read from The Portrait of a Lady.”