I Have Lost My Way(13)

* * *



— — —

No, Freya does not recoil, but her insides undulate too. No one touches me like that anymore, she thinks. Which is a strange thing to think, because these days she’s touched all the time, by stylists and trainers, by her mother, by a series of doctors, by Hayden and the execs from the label, who let their hands linger on her shoulders, her legs, her waist, just a moment longer than is comfortable. All these people who are there for her, to help her, their touch feels dead, but this stranger’s touch just made her heart trip.

What the fuck?



* * *



— — —

The blood from her cheek is on Nathaniel’s finger. He does not know what to do with it. Wipe it? Lick it? Transfuse it?

“Hey, you,” the Stroker calls. “You think you might give us a hand over here?”

The “you” in question approaches and begins to snap right in front of Nathaniel’s eyes.

This is extremely unpleasant.

“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” she says. “He’s awake.”

The snapping continues. “Are you okay?” the Snapper asks.

You’re doing okay, aren’t you? People used to ask Nathaniel that sometimes—the teammates he practiced with, the girls who used to flutter around him, the coaches who thought he had promise. You’re doing okay? they asked. After Mom left. After Grandma Mary died. After he lost his eye. You’re all right, aren’t you?

(Just us, buddy.)

Later, Nathaniel figured out it wasn’t really a question. People wanted reassurances; they wanted to be let off the hook, so even though he wasn’t all right or okay, even though he was a frog boiling in a pot, even though he was being swallowed up by the ground beneath him, he answered: “It’s all good.”

Which is such an obvious lie. When are things ever all good?

But people eat it up. When he tells them it’s all good, they smile. Their relief is always palpable and always heartbreaking, because Nathaniel has once again allowed himself to think they meant it this time. He’s like Charlie Brown with that stupid football.

If you need anything, just holler, they say, reciting lines in a script. To which Nathaniel answers, on cue, You bet. And it hurts worse for allowing himself to hope.

Nope. He’s not falling for that again. He’s not winding up flat on his back. He’s already flat on his back.

He starts to stand up.

“Help him up,” the Stroker demands, and she takes one hand, the Snapper taking the other.

Give me your hand, Nat, his dad used to say as he taught him to climb trees, higher and higher, above the canopy, where he claimed you could see all the way to Canada. His mom would get so angry. “I don’t know who’s the bigger child.”

He’s steadier now. He’s fine.

(Not fine, not really, but upright.)

He just needs a moment here, to gather his wits, to gain his bearings, to have his hands held by two strangers before they let go.

“Are you okay?” the Snapper asks again.

“It’s all . . .” he begins to tell them, to release them of culpability. And before he can finish the sentence, before he can say the word good, he throws up. Right onto the Stroker’s feet.



* * *



— — —

Freya stares at her feet. Soiled with vomit. She has a short fuse these days. Anything sets her off: traffic lights taking too long, the weather report being off by three degrees, anything anyone says to her.

Some random stranger just puked on her feet.

And she feels like crying, but not because she’s annoyed or grossed out.

What the fuck?

She excuses herself to clean her feet.



* * *



— — —

That Harun is a coward is not up for debate.

When he saw the girl fall from the bridge onto the boy below, what was his first impulse? Was it to run to their aid? To call an ambulance? To get help?

No, it was to flee.

Again, to restate: his cowardice is not up for debate.

The reason Harun wanted to run, initially, was that he had this terrible feeling that the accident was his fault. Moments before, he had been essentially cursing both of those people for not being James. Even if he had not asked for it in so many words, he had asked for it in intention—which is, he knows, what God listens to. People lie all the time about what they want, but intentions are pure.

So at first, he had stood by and tried to think of the appropriate prayer to say when you accidentally ask God to do something bad to other people. As’alu Allah al ’azim rabbil ’arshil ’azim an yashifika was all he came up with, asking Allah to cure them. (He’s given up asking that for himself.)

But he would like the record to show, when he saw the heap of bodies, imagining them both dead, or at the very least gravely injured by his thoughts, he snapped himself out of his fugue state and walked closer, planning to Do the Right Thing—administer CPR, call 911, say the correct prayer.

But at that particular point, the bodies disentangled and the young female portion of the heap sat up. He was close, close enough to see her face: the sharp cheekbones, the prominent oval eyes, the regal neck. And then she’d asked him for his help. With that voice.