When We Collided(21)

“Okay.” He smiles, but it’s a halfway smile because he’s tired. I know he’s tired, that he is weary, and I want to know even more. “Silas! Vivi and I are going out to eat.”

He knows Silas won’t mind because we’ve had the littles with us all day long, and he’s overdue for a break. After a week of life with the Daniels family, I’m starting to learn the expected give-and-take between three teenagers who seem in charge of their whole family. As we start down the street, Jonah keeps a hold of my hand, and I’m lost in thought of their little world.

I’m in love with Leah, of course, and her limitless imagination and infectious giggle and the unselfconscious way she plays with my hair. I love Isaac and his obsessions and tiny glasses and spiky hair, created with some sort of gel clearly stolen from an older sibling. I’m in love with Bekah and her preteen moodiness and eye rolls, the way she’s still a carefree child until she catches herself and slips back into sulkiness. I’m in love with Silas—his immature jokes meshed with responsibility for the littles. Even Naomi, obstinately making me earn her friendship, and I’m failing so far, which only makes me try harder.

And Jonah. Oh, Jonah. That boy did me in that first night at his house—seeing him in his natural element, cooking and surrounded by his rambunctious family. Such a precarious balance and yet he let me right in. What a heart! And since he can be so serious, I nudge him with each slow afternoon, with hip bumps as we walk along, with looking over at him right this very moment and biting my lip as if it is a random tic. Which it is not.

Jonah is so stuck in his weariness that of course he doesn’t realize anyone else sees him. When we walk down the street together, girls always glance over quickly at him. Once we pass, they turn around to get another look. Of course they do. Jonah is a truly beautiful boy—that gorgeous hair and olive skin and strong arms from carrying groceries and his little sister. He has those deep, dark eyes that show he carries a lot of heavy things inside himself, too.

In town, we order two ice-cream cones—mint chocolate chip for him and rocky road for me. We came here earlier this week to eat banana splits, and Isaac ate so much that he almost puked, which was sad and also hilarious.

“Thanks, Patty,” Jonah says to the woman who hands us the cones. Then Jonah holds the woman’s eye contact, gesturing toward the staircase. “Do you mind?”

“Nah.” She winks at him. “Just be careful.”

I trail behind Jonah as he moves up the stairs at the back of the shop. The upstairs floor looks more like an old house than an ice-cream parlor. There are a few framed paint-by-numbers, a door with a glass handle—a bathroom, maybe—and another door, which Jonah opens. It goes out onto a flat tar roof, which seems sturdy enough. This view is spectacular, a front-row seat as the neon sun dips her round belly into the ocean below.

“Wow,” I breathe, settling next to Jonah on the edge of the roof. We both dangle our legs off the edge, and I’m disappointed to find a fire escape right below us. If we fell, we would be fine, which is a shame—ice cream, cute boy, and sunset on a roof? The only thing missing is a little buzz of danger.

This is probably the longest I’ve ever been quiet in my life. We walked the whole way here in the quiet, and now I look at this boy, whose eyes seem burned out behind the smoke screen of warm brown irises. “Oh, Jonah. You look so tired.”

His smile is wry. “I am so tired. I’ve been tired for months.”

“Well, we fit together like mint ice cream and chocolate chips, Jonah, because it takes me a while to get tired. All night long, I dare the stars to outlast me, and I’d say the score’s about even during the average week. So you get some extra sleep, and I’ll stay up for both of us; how about that?”

He glances sidelong at me, not fully committing to a look. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything, Jonah.”

I knew he’d open up, if we were alone and I was quiet enough. So I kick my legs against the gutter, happy to wait. The wind off the ocean tousles his beautiful hair, like the cold front knows all my dirty thoughts and will exploit them. I am so crazy about Jonah’s thick almost-curls that even the atmosphere knows it.

He stares down at his ice-cream cone instead of licking it, even though the mint is softening by the second, threatening to drip. “Why haven’t you asked about my parents?”

I’ve noticed the lack of parent in the Daniels household—of course I have. They’ve said enough that I know their mom is upstairs and maybe ill. The littles use the phrase my dad used to, but I don’t know if he’s dead or if he left or if something else prevents him from being around. Maybe he’s institutionalized or deployed. Jonah doesn’t watch me while I think; he eats his ice cream and stares out at the waves.

“Well, let’s just say I have my own personal fun facts that I keep close to the vest.” I take a lick of my rocky road, rotating the cone in my hand to smooth the ice cream into a rounder shape. “If there were things you wanted to tell me, I figured you’d tell me in your own time.”

“Oh.” He looks genuinely relieved. “Okay, good. I thought you didn’t ask because you already knew—like someone in town told you.”

Come to think of it, Whitney did mention something the day I met Jonah. She made him seem haunted, followed around by ghosts who tug at him in the silent spaces.