I Have Lost My Way(29)

He doesn’t want to hope. But he doesn’t want to let go just yet. Is there some middle ground, a space where he can allow himself this bit of human kindness without getting too attached? It’s so easy to get attached. Three baby birds, a shoebox, and an eyedropper. They’d buried the birds not far from where Mary’s ashes were scattered. His father had wept.

Freya’s foot is bandaged and taped, but Nathaniel can’t quite let her go. Just a few minutes more. His father won’t mind. He has lost the battle, and hope has won, and the desperation to get away has reversed itself. Because of a foot. A foot he can’t seem to let go of. A foot that, miraculously, is still resting in his lap.

He stares at the foot of this formidable girl and holds his breath, because if he moves so much as an inch he will break the spell and Freya will surely leave.



* * *



— — —

    The spell goes both ways. Freya can’t move either. Doesn’t want to move. Nathaniel may be holding on to her filthy foot, but it feels like he’s palming her heart. It feels like she has a heart.

Please don’t let go, she thinks.



* * *



— — —

Nathaniel doesn’t let go.



* * *



— — —

Harun doesn’t want to let go, either. “Maybe we should get you some shoes,” he suggests. Freya does need shoes. But more to the point, her buying shoes will buy him time. “There’s a store down the block.”



* * *



— — —

“Shoes!” Nathaniel says. What a brilliant idea. He could hug Harun. “I need to buy you shoes.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Freya says, pulling her foot back.

“No,” Nathaniel says, yanking her foot toward him. “I have to replace the ones I ruined.”

“I didn’t even like those shoes,” she says. “You did me a favor.”

He doesn’t care if she liked them or not. He’s the one who needs the favor. He needs this. Just for a little longer. Is it too much to ask? Probably. But he’s asking anyway.

“I have to buy you shoes.”

Freya’s foot stiffens, and Nathaniel knows he’s revealed a part of himself that must be kept secret. The wild, feral part that Dad said they could show each other but not anyone else (Don’t tell your mother) because they wouldn’t understand. Nathaniel tries to remember the person he once was, athletic, even popular. He tries faking being him. “It’s just the right thing to do, to get you new shoes, you know?” His voice sounds strange and foreign, like someone on TV. Is she buying it? Can he pass as his old self? Was he ever his old self?

“I really don’t need you to buy me shoes,” Freya says.

She starts to pull her leg away, but Nathaniel can’t let go. He’s a drowning man, and her ankle is his life preserver. But she’s pulling it away, leaving him no choice but to reveal the feral man inside. “Please,” he begs. “Let me buy you shoes.”



* * *



— — —

Freya doesn’t need new shoes. At home, she has rows of them; many of them, like the pair she threw away earlier, had been given to her in hopes of a mention online. It used to thrill her, all the freebies in exchange for her word. But now that she knows it all might go away soon, it’s like wearing shoes made of lead.

In any event, she doesn’t need Nathaniel to buy her shoes. Certainly not $375 shoes, which was what the ones he puked on today cost. She wonders if he even has $375 to his name.

She pictures his wallet, the lonely bills, the creased photo strip, the folded business card. She glances at his shoes, a pair of dirty canvas sneakers that she would bet $375 have holes in the soles.



* * *



— — —

This is a bet she would win.



* * *



— — —

And that’s when she understands: he is her responsibility. He is, for today anyway, her person. She doesn’t need new shoes, but she needs this to continue. So if Nathaniel wants to buy her shoes, she’ll let him buy her shoes.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s get me shoes.”



* * *



— — —

Who is made happier by this statement? Harun, Nathaniel, or Freya? Hard to tell.



* * *



— — —

The store Harun pointed to is a chain, the kind of place Freya used to shop in but hasn’t in years because dream it, be it.

It’s empty, and there are comfy seats inside, but Freya gestures to the bench outside. “You wait out here.” It comes out as a command. She’s told that she can come across as imperious, bitchy. She’s read people sniping about this. She needed us when she started out, but now she’s too good, they write. No, Freya wants to reply. I still need you. But she wasn’t permitted to respond anymore, and so the silence seemed to confirm their suspicions. Anyway, Hayden told her not to worry about it. Some early fans would always feel betrayed when their secret got out. This did not make Freya feel better. She didn’t want to betray anyone else.