Gone, Gone, Gone(12)

He raises his eyebrows at me.

If we’re not going to talk about the kiss, are we at least going to talk about the email that talked about talking about the kiss? Correction—am I going to talk about the email? Because it’s not like he will. And no. I’m not.

I say, “You know that whole thing about the world ending with a whimper, not a bang? This is actually how it’s going to happen. We get shot until there’s no one left.”

I touch his hand because I’m dying to, all of a sudden. Just a tap with my finger on his palm.

He says, point-blank, “That’s awful.”

“Well, we’d last for a long time, I think. I get the feeling we’d be resourceful and everything.” I clear my throat and take my hand away. “I was just joking around.”

“Yeah.” He slings his backpack over his shoulder like he’s about to leave, but he doesn’t move. He’s staring me down, or up, I guess, because he has to tilt his chin at a pretty wide angle to look at me. And he’s still fierce and frightening.

But I’m angry. “Maybe I’m scared,” I say. “Maybe I’m scared and deflecting.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you consider that?”

He shrugs.

“I mean, Jesus, Lio.” What am I so mad at him about? I lean against his locker. “I mean . . . I could be scared.” I could be a lot of things and he f*cking wouldn’t know, maybe that’s the point.

He starts walking to his next class, or to somewhere, or maybe just to anywhere that’s not here. I jog beside him. He used to run cross-country, and those short legs know how to move.

He says, “You’re not.”

“I’m not what?”

“Scared.”

“Three random people—”

“Four.”

“—have been shot. I completely have a right to be scared. I could be quaking in my boots. Sneakers.”

“You’re complacent,” he says.

A three-syllable word from Lio is enough cause to stop walking, so I do, and he comes to rest beside me. But I can tell he really doesn’t want to stop walking, and he doesn’t want to look at me, and he certainly doesn’t want to talk to me.

At least not about people dying.

Wait, so which one of us is the coward here? Because I would rather talk about people getting shot than talk about him kissing me, and how pathetic is that? Right now I want to crawl back in bed rather than talk about anything real. It’s so much easier to debate and argue over this shit that has nothing to do with us or how we feel. Random people that happen to die in our random city.

I say, “I’m not . . . complacent.”

“You don’t think you’re going to get shot.”

I rub the back of my neck. “Well, yeah. I mean, chances are, I’m not going to get shot.”

“You’re right.”

I look at him.

Lio’s really into numbers. He counts when he’s nervous. I’ll put my hand on his back, and he’ll give me this really small smile—sorry. I’m a little f*cked up.

He sighs. “You think you won’t get shot because you’re you. You doesn’t get shot. Won’t happen to you.”

I catch my breath. “So?”

“It’s bullshit.” He shrugs.

“You can’t pretend like I should be out there fearing for my life. Come on. The odds are . . . I mean, four people? Odds were pretty good that none of those would be me, you know that. If we’re playing the odds . . .”


“Be confident because the odds are in your favor.” He clears his throat, like talking this much hurts him. “Not because you’re a special snowflake.”

This isn’t fair. None of this is fair.

I don’t know if I’m special, but yeah, there’s that heartbeat telling me, I’m Craig, I’m Craig, and I don’t think I need to apologize for that. I’m Craig, and Craig is alive. I know that. It’s basically the first thing I know when I get up in the morning, so yeah, I’m not really open to the idea of that changing any more than I’m open to the idea that I’ll stand up and there won’t be floor. Is that a problem? I can’t be the only one who feels this way. I think that’s consciousness, and I think it might be the thing that keeps me from being a sociopath.

“You won’t get shot,” he says. “It’s a numbers game.”

Right now my heartbeat’s all out of whack trying to thrum out, Why did you kiss me and why won’t you do it again? But I can’t ask it, I can’t.

Anyway, by the time we get out of class, someone else has been killed. A twenty-five-year-old woman was pumping gas, and someone shot her in the head. At long range, like all the others.

I’m so mad. I’m just mad about everything. I feel like this proves Lio right or wrong but I don’t even know what his damn point is, and in fifth period he barely even looks at me. He just sits there and doodles a lot.



Mom picks me up after school and there’s Kremlin in the backseat, pounding her paws against the leather, and I cuddle that dog so hard that I’m worried I’m going to rub all her fur off or something, and she licks my face over and over, and she smells funny but I don’t even care.