We Are the Ants(57)

That meant I’d been missing since Thursday, which wasn’t possible. People only went missing for that long in sitcoms, which always ended happily, or horror movies, which rarely ended happily unless you were white and chaste and not gay.

I remembered kissing Diego—Diego who liked me and wanted to kiss me and didn’t care who knew—and he’d gone to get us drinks. Then the sluggers abducted me. Which meant that when Diego had returned to his bedroom, I’d disappeared without saying good-bye. He must have thought I’d freaked out and run away. I instinctively reached for my phone, but the aliens had stripped me of everything but my festive turkey boxers. Gobble, gobble.

“I have to go.” When I tried to stand, I stumbled, but the old man caught me. His fingers were rough and grimy, and left streaks of filth on my arm that I fought the urge to wipe off. “Thanks,” I muttered, and pointed myself toward the road, ignoring his offer of help.

? ? ?

Charlie’s legs stuck out from under the Wrangler when I trudged home twenty minutes later, and country music filled the morning silence. It wasn’t loud, but I was still surprised Mr. Nabu hadn’t called the cops to complain. He complained about everything, including the fact that we still had our Christmas lights up in July. By that time, Charlie refused to take them down because it was already closer to next Christmas than it was from last.

I exaggerated my stride, letting my feet smack the driveway so I didn’t startle Charlie. When I got within two feet of the Jeep, he froze and said, “Zooey?”

My throat felt like a lemon was lodged behind my Adam’s apple, and I tried to work up a mouthful of saliva to swallow so I could answer. “Nah, I’m much prettier.”

Charlie scrambled out from under the Jeep. His face was smeared with grease, and he was wearing his WIZARDS DO IT WITH WANDS T-shirt. In one motion, he embraced me and squeezed out my breath, wordless but shaking. He’d pinned my arms to my sides so I couldn’t even hug him back, not that it seemed to matter.

“Where the f*ck have you been?” He held me at arm’s length, examining me.

“Nowhere.”

“We called the f*cking police, bro.”

“When?”

“Saturday.” Charlie knuckled his temple. “Some guy came by looking for you Friday. Said you were at his house on Thanksgiving.”

“Diego?”

Charlie grabbed a rag from his back pocket and tried to clean his hands, but they were so filthy, all he did was smear the dirt around. “Maybe. Yeah, I think so. He was worried about you.”

Diego had come to look for me. I was an *. He’d probably spent the weekend searching Calypso for me. I had to let him know I was okay. “Do you have your phone?”

Charlie swore. “I gotta let Mom know you’re home.” Even though Mrs. Melcher was standing in her front yard with her fluffy dog, Barron, and I was in my boxers, shivering, I waited while Charlie called her. “Yeah, Mom? He’s home. I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay, hold on.” He shoved the phone at me.

I shook my head and backed away. I couldn’t deal with Mom until I’d had coffee and a shower; I needed time to figure out what to tell her. She couldn’t handle the truth, but I didn’t know what lie I could conjure up that would satisfy her rage. No matter what I said, I was in for it when she got ahold of me.

Charlie curled his lip like he wanted to punch me. “Yeah, Mom . . . he’s going to take a shower. He’s fine. Okay . . . okay . . . I’ll tell him.” Charlie tossed the phone into the Jeep. “Mom wants you home right after school.”

“Thanks, Charlie.”

“Don’t thank me.” Charlie frowned at me with disgust. Growing up, he’d called me a botched abortion, shit stain, f*cktard, faggot, asshat, dipshit, and Henrietta. But in all our years together he’d never looked at me like he was ashamed to be my brother. “Where the f*ck were you, Henry?”

“Nowhere.”

Charlie shoved me with so much force that I stumbled backward and fell onto the lawn. I threw my hands behind me as I fell, and landed on my ass. Dew soaked my boxers, grass stained my palms. I scrambled to my feet. “What the hell, Charlie?”

“You’ve been gone for days—days, Henry—and ‘nowhere’ is all you can say? Mom thought you were beat up again, or worse!”

I had a pretty good idea what worse meant. When I found out that Jesse had hanged himself in his bedroom, I overheard my mom tell Nana that she couldn’t imagine anything worse than finding her son’s dead body, but I knew that wasn’t true. Worse would be never finding me, never knowing what had happened, but I wouldn’t have done that. Not to her, not to anyone.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

Charlie shook his head. He could barely look at me. “No shit.”

“What’s wrong with the Jeep?” I asked, unsure what else to say.

“Nothing.”

“Then why aren’t you in bed?”

Charlie sneered. “If you think any of us could sleep not knowing whether you were dead or alive, then you don’t know dick about this family.”

? ? ?

I walked into Faraci’s class, rubbing my head to try to ease the persistent pounding in my temples. Not even ten minutes brushing my teeth had been enough to scrub the sticky film from my mouth, and if I took any more aspirin, I’d probably start leaking blood from every orifice.