Gone, Gone, Gone(19)

I stand up in time to see that Craig’s crying.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen him cry. The boy broke down during a History Channel segment on the War of 1812 in American Civ a few weeks ago, for God’s sake.

It still makes me pause. I can’t help it. I don’t like crying.

I wish I knew what to say.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

And suddenly words fall out of my mouth. “I don’t know? What did nine eleven mean to you? What does it mean to anyone who didn’t see the towers fall?”

His eyes are cat-narrowed, and he yells, “My boyfriend’s f*cking father didn’t die in the f*cking towers!”


I swallow.

Okay, so I didn’t know that. I didn’t know Cody’s father died in the Pentagon. Craig should have told me that a long time ago.

I hate when people do this. I hate when people hide their cards to feel secret and strong. That’s no way of dealing with anything. I don’t pretend shit didn’t happen to me. I don’t stay up all night instead of going to therapy.

And he called Cody his boyfriend. Not ex-boyfriend. Just boyfriend.

So instead of apologizing, I swallow again and say, “A hundred and eighty-nine. It’s not the same.”

But Craig is crying hard now, and he won’t look at me. I reach my hand out a little, but he doesn’t move. I don’t know what to do.

I pack his lunch up and leave it at his feet. I pack my lunch up, and I go.

Then I hit a freshman. I was getting so much better about that, too. I feel awful about it, so I turn myself in.

They don’t suspend me, but they call my dad to pick me up. Because of the sniper, I’m not allowed to wait for him outside. Clearly they don’t know where Craig and I eat.

And I realize, while I’m standing here with the principal by the front door, watching for my father, that I am worried about Craig. Out there, crying, unprotected.

Dad’s pissed when he gets here. He had to leave work to pick me up. They should have let Jasper bring me home.

Dad walks me to the car in a zigzag pattern and says, “Well, I guess you’ll have something to tell Adelle this afternoon, huh?”

Craig and his lunch are both gone.

Dad asks if I need ice for my hand, but I don’t answer him. I really, really don’t feel like talking. Adelle’s going to have a great time with me today.





CRAIG

THINGS I ALWAYS LIKED ABOUT LIO:

The gaps between his canines and the rest of his teeth that make him look like a vampire or a really dangerous puppy.

His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn’t cold.

The fact that the teachers stopped making him take his hats off after the first week, probably because his hair is so f*cked up.

The scar from the central line he had, and how he wears tank tops that let it show, and he doesn’t care if people ask, he just says “cancer” and gives them a small smile to know he’s not offended and he’s not upset and he’s not dead, and he plays with it, running his fingers across it and pinching the scar tissue when he’s concentrating and he thinks no one’s looking.

His voice, low and gravelly, like he’s always getting over a cold.

Things I now hate:

His stupid smiles he makes me work for.

His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn’t cold.

The fact that I probably won’t be mad at him in a few hours because he’s so f*cking shiny, he’s like this star in my head and I can’t get him out, and he’s shining all bright and he’s keeping me awake and I keep thinking about him but I don’t think he’s any more ready for me than I am for him, even though he probably thinks he is because he probably thinks he’s all fixed up and shit, and he’s not, and I’m not ready, I’m not, because I don’t know how to be ready, but in a few hours I won’t be mad at him anymore, and that sucks. I don’t know what to do with that.

The tank tops that show off his arms.

Cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy, I get it.

His silence.

So Cody’s dad’s death pretty much destroyed my boy, and as much as we didn’t want it to destroy us, as hard as we worked, as hard as I worked . . .

God, I held on. I held on so hard, for months.

When he was screaming. When he was crying. When he was telling me he hated me and why hadn’t I died instead. That time he slapped me across the face and shrieked “Bring him back bring him back right now.” The time he shoved me across the room and told me if he ever saw me again he’d kill me himself, and called me two hours later, baby I’m so sorry, baby I’m just so sad and I don’t know what to do and my therapist says I BLAH BLAH BLAH.

When he said he was going to buy a gun and get revenge himself, and I told him no—not because I thought that was wrong, but because I knew he wouldn’t go to Afghanistan and I was worried he would go to school or his mother or his therapist. Or me.

So they eventually shipped him off, not to Afghanistan, but to some hospital and then some boarding school, and I never visited him, not once, and it took so long before he asked me to visit, and it should be simple to say no, I can’t, I won’t do it again, I can’t, but it isn’t, because he fell asleep crying in my arms so many times, and he called me Lollipop, and he told me I was the only thing, the only thing in the entire huge bad scary world, that helped.