We Are the Ants(28)

“I guess.” I’d never looked through a telescope before, and I’d always wanted to, but I kept waiting for Diego to crack an alien joke or ask me about the abductions, even though he hadn’t mentioned either in weeks.

After twenty minutes of trying to set up the telescope, Diego threw his hands in the air and admitted defeat. I had no idea what I was doing, but I tried to aim it at something interesting anyway. “You know,” I said, as I fiddled with the knobs, “I kind of like that you suck at something.”

“Me? You’re crazy. I suck at lots of things. Stargazing, for instance. And Ping-Pong. I’m the world’s worst Ping-Pong player.” Diego busied himself with spreading out a ratty blanket that had been wadded up in the bag with the telescope. “Anything?”

I peered through the eyepiece and tweaked it until I managed to bring Neptune more or less into focus. “Check it out.”

Diego sprang to his feet and peeked through the lens. “Is it supposed to be that small?”

“It’s almost three billion miles away. Even traveling at the speed of light, it would still take about four hours to reach.” I tried to imagine standing on that cold, distant planet, breathing hydrogen and helium, viewing Earth from the other side of the solar system. I wondered if it was lonely out there on the edge of space, so far from the light and warmth of the sun. “I bet I can find Saturn. We can probably see its rings.”

“It’s not a very good telescope, is it?”

“Better than nothing.”

Diego patted the tube. “Viv got it cheap, I think. She’s not a telescope expert.”

“And you are?”

“No.” Diego swiveled the telescope to another part of the sky and looked through the eyepiece. He kept adjusting the knobs, but I don’t think he knew what he was doing. “I just thought I could show you something beautiful.” He glared at the telescope. “Or try to, anyway.”

I trudged back to the blanket, flopping down and staring at my toes. It was one of the most considerate things anyone had done for me, and that twisted my stomach into knots. “Why are you so nice to me?”

“I’ve got a soft spot for lost causes.”

“I’m not your charity case.”

Diego abandoned the telescope and sat across from me. The way he looked at me—with curiosity or pity, I couldn’t tell which—made me wish I’d ignored his text. “It was a joke, Henry.”

“That’s what Marcus always says.”

“That’s because he’s a douche.”

“He’s not. I mean, yeah, he is, but sometimes he’s okay.”

“Wait.” Diego’s eyes widened. “Please tell me Marcus isn’t the guy you’ve been fooling around with.”

“No,” I said, but it was obvious I was lying when my voice broke. “Damn it.” I stood and walked to the water, let the waves run over my toes. If I dove in, maybe I could swim off the edge of the world. When I heard Diego behind me, I said, “Don’t you dare tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know how to keep a secret.”

“That’s obvious.”

I waited for Diego to decide I was too much trouble, to leave or fight with me. Something. He simply stood beside me while the moments passed and my anger drained into the ocean. Then he said, “Do you actually like him?”

“I thought I did.”

“He’s not the kind of guy I figured you’d go for.”

“He isn’t.”

“Then why?”

“Because he’s not Jesse.” It was the first time I’d admitted it to myself. Marcus and Jesse were so different. Jesse had never called me Space Boy, he never would have hit me, hadn’t cared what his friends thought, and I’d never felt ashamed of who I was with him. Jesse had loved me.

But that’s a lie, isn’t it? If Jesse had loved me, he wouldn’t have left me. “Marcus isn’t a bad guy. He can be sweet.”

A wave splashed across my feet and sloshed up my legs, soaking the cuffs of my jeans. In the dark it was difficult to see where the ocean ended and the sky began; I could pretend the sky curved down and around, and that it was possible to walk on the clouds. But even though I wasn’t looking at Diego, I felt the pull of him, the way he distorted everything around him so I didn’t know what was right or real anymore.

“What about all the names he calls you? The shit he and his friends put you through? A guy who does that . . . Well, he’s not really boyfriend material. I mean, is that honestly who you want to be with?” Diego’s voice contained a dangerous undertow. He hardly sounded like the boy who’d flung himself into my chemistry class, pretending to be a nude model. “Well, is it?”

I knew the answer. Jesse Franklin was who I wanted to be with. Jesse, who’d wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my neck and told me it was going to be okay after I fought with my mom, and who stayed up all night on the phone with me when he went to Rhode Island to visit his family for Christmas, and we watched the sunrise together even though we were separated by 1,377 miles. That was who I wanted to be with. But he was dead. “Maybe that’s what I deserve,” I said under my breath.