Boys Like You(45)

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BOYS LIKE YOU

Sausage from the vendors. Garbage piled up in the streets, waiting for the trucks to drive by and collect.

That afternoon, I’d been full of resentment and annoyance, and it killed me to remember those particular things. But I had to. I needed to get it out. I needed for Nate to understand even if I didn’t.

Because Nate’s pain was as real as mine, and maybe he could be saved. Maybe he’d never get to the place where I had been.

“It was wicked hot in the city, like record heat, and he wanted to go to the park. He’d bugged me about it all morning until I snapped. I thought he was doing it just because he knew I wanted to stay home. God, there was a Walking Dead marathon on, and I hadn’t seen the show yet. I just wanted to chill and watch it with my best friend, who was in the Hamptons with her family.”

I thought of my friend Kate. We would spend hours texting each other when we weren’t together. Boys. Songs. Gossip.

But that day it was gonna be about zombies, and I hadn’t seen her since the week before so I was looking forward to painting my toenails, watching the zombies, and sharing all of it with her.

“Malcolm knew I didn’t want to go, but he didn’t care. I guess most seven-year- olds are kind of selfish that way.”

I could have said no. I could have told Malcolm that the smog and humidity wasn’t good for his asthma. But I didn’t. At the time I thought, “okay, you little twerp. We’ll see how much you like it when you have trouble breathing.”

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Juliana Ston e

It was mid-July, and there were weeks ahead of us. With Mom and Dad working until vacation in August, weeks where I was in charge. I wanted to teach him a lesson. I just didn’t know it would all go so wrong.

“I remember Mick, the guy who sold sausages on the corner near the park, telling us we were crazy to be out.” I paused. “He was right.”

I had marched by, glaring at the back of Malcolm’s golden head, and I had thought, “you little shit. Just wait, buddy. You should have listened to me.”

“The funny thing was, when we got to the park, there were a lot of kids out. It was like a switch had been turned on or something.

Malcolm gave me the biggest hug. His arms were thin— God, they looked like spaghetti noodles— but he was strong. He whispered in my ear, ‘I love you, Roe,’ and just like that, he made me feel like a total bitch for not wanting to bring him. I roughed up his hair a bit and told him he had an hour, tops.”

I paused, overwhelmed, and then whispered. “He was fine with an hour. After all that, an hour at the park was enough for him.”

Malcolm had run to the swings while I found a grassy spot under a tree and sat down. It was maybe a few degrees cooler but still so hot. I’d brought a book and lay down on my stomach to read. I didn’t mean to fall asleep; it just kind of happened. I read a few pages. Texted with Kate and then closed my eyes.

“I would give anything,” my voice broke, “anything to have not fallen asleep. I remember waking up and not knowing where 184

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I was at first. I felt the breeze, smelled the grass, and heard the kids shrieking and giggling as they ran through the water pad on the other side of the swings. I don’t know when I realized that something was wrong.”

I shrugged and burrowed deeper into Nate’s arms.

“Maybe it’s why I woke up in the first place. Some weird sense that something was wrong.”

I paused again, remembering how my stomach fell all the way to the ground and took me with it.

“I looked everywhere for Malcolm…but he was gone. I was frantic, yelling his name and shouting at the kids like a lunatic.

This mother came over to me and asked me what was wrong.

When I told her that my brother was missing, she looked around and then she shook my shoulders. She asked me when I’d seen him last and I told her…I told her that I’d fallen asleep and then I couldn’t speak anymore. The look in her eyes…I’ll never forget. She knew I had let it happen.”

I thought that I was all cried out, but hot tears burned my itchy, blotchy skin.

“I screamed in her face. I yelled, ‘It’s not my fault,’ but it was.

And then when I found his inhaler in my bag, I just knew that something bad had happened. It was too hot. He needed his inhaler. By this time, the place was crawling with cops. I don’t know who called them. It wasn’t me. But they were there and they were asking me questions, and every time they did, I saw that woman’s face. I saw her accusation.”

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Juliana Ston e

My voice broke.

“I saw the truth.”

“Oh God, Monroe. You don’t have to do this,” Nate breathed into me, his nose near mine, his dark eyes shiny.

But I did.

“They found him almost immediately, in the trees that cut through the park. I think he was trying to get back to me because he was in trouble, but I was asleep and totally unaware. I bet he yelled for me. He had to have, and sometimes I hear him, you know? I hear him screaming, ‘Roe, where are you? Come get me!’