Gone, Gone, Gone(44)

And that’s okay right now. I love him including loving Cody, and I love him including loving him.

Lio talks. Lio talks a lot. This is so incredibly weird.

“I didn’t go to school on Friday,” he says.

“Yeah, neither did I.”

“My dad says I don’t have to go back until I’m ready. I think Adelle wants me to go, but she says I should do what I’m comfortable with.”

I keep touching him, his cheek, his back, the scar on his chest, to make sure he’s still Lio.

Then I swallow and say, “Are you talking because of Jack?”

He shakes his head. “I’m talking because I wanted to talk about you.” He grins. “And now I’m talking to you.”

He tastes like Lio.

Lio Lio Lio. I want to say it forever. I could whisper it to him while he falls asleep. I am full of stupid thoughts like this.

“Look how many more animals you have!” He touches every single one he can get his hands on. He has to ask each one of their names about twenty times, but I don’t mind. My parents do too.

“Hey hey hey, do you want to go outside and look some more?” I ask. I’m so excited I’m nearly bouncing. “I’m sure there are more still out there, probably they’re sensing the ones that have come home and they’re on their way. We could go get them!”

But the way he looks at me makes me wish I hadn’t said anything. God, he’s scared. What is he so scared about? Isn’t he the one who taught me about odds? What are the chances, out of all the people in the Maryland-D.C.-Virginia metropolis, we’ll be the ones to be shot?

A few days ago, he was the one to suggest we go outside. And I was the one who told him we didn’t have to.

Today he says, “Okay.”

“I’m going to New York on Monday,” he says when we get to the top of the hill.

I look at him. He’s not looking at me.

“For just a few days.” He keeps rubbing his nose and looking at the ground. I want to shake the words out of him. Gently.

“Why are you going to New York?” I say.

“My mom.”

“Your mom’s still in New York?”

He nods.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Dad thinks if I’m going to not go to school, I should at least be taking care of Michelle. And she really wants to go. I guess . . . I don’t know. I guess Michelle’s thinking of going to live with her long-term. I guess she doesn’t feel safe here.”

“What about you?” My voice sounds stupid and too small for me.

He looks at me. “Craiger, it’s just a visit.” He touches my hand. “I promise. I’ll be back.”

“You better be.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

We find Hail, my last rabbit, and he’s dead, and something has picked him apart a little. His eyes are closed. He looks like it hurt.

God damn it. My chest hurts.

“Shit,” Lio says, softly.

But I take a deep breath, and I’m the one who says, “It’s okay. Look, it’s going to be okay.”


“Sleep upstairs with me?” he begs. “Your parents won’t know.”

I shake my head. “They’re light sleepers.”

They’re not. They slept through a f*cking burglary, for God’s sake.

It’s just that the thing is that the last time I slept in that bed, I was with Cody.

No, I wasn’t, but I was still crying about how Cody was gone and how I was never, ever going to be able to deal.

And I don’t want to think about Cody tonight. Even though I think about Cody every night. Even though as soon as Lio leaves the room, I’m going to hit refresh on my email and beg Cody to talk to me. I’m going to fall asleep with his name on my brain.

Lio kisses me good night.

I don’t sleep.

Sunday morning, Lio leaves to go home and pack. He gives me a big hug and hands me a note, folded like the last one.

“I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Of course.”

But I can’t fix this gnawing feeling in me that this is the end of something, that this weekend we were playing house and now we are back to real life, back to New York and ex-boyfriends and snipers.

I wait until he’s gone to open the note.





CRAIG


On the inside, a very small heart.

Home is where the . . . well, you know.





LIO

MICHELLE HOLDS MY HAND LIKE I’M HER MOM IN A supermarket. This would be okay, except Michelle looks old for her age and I look young. So people probably think we’re dating. Ugh.

We pass the enormous blue crab statue and stand in line to go through the metal detectors so we can get x-rayed and inspected and prodded and studied and excavated and all that. Security takes a million years longer than it used to. I have to take off my hat.

The TSA guys are all giving me funny looks. Do I really look like a terrorist?

I guess no one knows what a terrorist looks like anymore.

Maybe leaving is a mistake. I give Michelle’s hand a quick squeeze. It was more for me than for her, but she clings in a way I didn’t expect.

She puts her bag on the conveyor belt and steps through the metal detector. I keep watching her until she’s all the way through. When we get to the gate, she sits down and wrings her hands.