Page 16

Riding in Fox’s van—which was literally a 1989 Toyota Van, perhaps the least creative name in the history of automotives—was like the responsible adult version of an acid trip. Tonight, for example, there was a large pirate’s chest (I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it) in the back. It was wrapped in heavy chains, and although I know it was probably only my imagination (it was almost Halloween, after all), I swear I heard something thump inside it. There was also a mobile made out of tennis skirts hanging from the exact center of the van’s roof, which rendered the rearview mirror totally useless (and which I think would have made Bobby whip out his little black book of ticket-writing). There was a purse on the floor with Jackie O’s face silkscreened onto it; someone had come along after the fact and given her googly eyes. The rest of the space was taken up with trash bags full of enough fake (and multicolored) fur to outfit an entire squadron of pimps.

(Are we still allowed to say pimps? Should I say night entrepreneurs ?)

It was easier to focus on the bewildering contents of the van than to think about—well, everything else. Keme. And Indira. And whatever Indira had meant by that final, cryptic comment. Keme wanted to ask me a question? Sure, great. What question? But Indira had refused to say anything else. Wouldn’t do anything, in fact, except bundle me off with Fox. Sending me to my (impending, gruesome) death, which would happen as soon as Keme caught sight of me.

You will doubtless be unsurprised to learn that Hastings Rock, our picturesque little town, didn’t have a Greyhound station. It didn’t have any bus stations, as a matter of fact, although there was a regional commuter bus that did pickups and drop-offs in front of the town visitors’ center. Instead—as I had learned tonight—we had a bus stop. Singular. As in, one place in town where the Greyhounds stopped. And it happened to be at the Starlite Cinema.

So, as Bobby had suggested, Fox and I drove north through Hastings Rock. I’d been to the Starlite plenty of times to catch movies with the Last Picks. (Memorably, the month before, Keme had forced me to go see The Nun with him, and he’d had to hold my hand the entire second half of the movie so I didn’t run out of the theater screaming. I had nightmares for a week, by the way, and I’m pretty sure Bobby had The Talk with Keme—The Talk being: no more scary movies for Dash.)

The theater was part of a relatively newer development in Hastings Rock, and because it wasn’t in the quaint, touristy downtown, it looked a lot like any other strip-mall movie theater. It was a big, windowless building with movie posters in display cases. A marquee with flashing lights projected out above the doors. This week, you could see Venom (already seen it three times), A Star is Born (yep, date night with Bobby, and yes, I cried), and yet another entry in the seemingly interminable series of Halloween movies (not yet, especially after The Talk, but before all the craziness of the last few days, Keme and I had agreed it was probably safe to sit through the first half hour and then decide if it was too scary for me). Unlike the touristy sections of Hastings Rock, it had plenty of parking (perfect for the van, which made an ominous grinding noise as Fox maneuvered the old battleship into the lot), as well as a quasi-outlet-mall array of retail—an Eddie Bauer store, a Pendleton store, a Cold Stone. I was hopping out of the van when I decided that Cold Stone would be the perfect place to stake out the bus stop, since a) there was ice cream, and b) it was warm, and c) ideally, Keme wouldn’t see me and therefore murder me.

As I opened my mouth to explain this plan to Fox, they shouted, “He’s getting away!”

And then they hit the gas, and the van lurched forward, and my door clicked shut.

So, like a certified genius, I stood there and watched as the van trundled off after a dark-haired boy on a bike, who was rapidly disappearing down a cross street.

I had my doubts about the boy being Keme. I was also suddenly aware that shouting things like He’s getting away and then chasing down teenagers in a mysterious van that smelled like a Dragon Musk air freshener and then forcing teenagers into said van was probably not a great plan.

I turned around to wait for Fox in the Cold Stone—or, more likely, to wait for the deputies who would inevitably come to arrest us—and saw Keme.

He stood on the grassy verge under a streetlight, near a small sign I’d never noticed before—red, white, and blue, with a leaping greyhound pictured on it. His long dark hair was hidden under a beanie, and he wore a familiar-looking canvas jacket that, last time I’d seen it, had been in my closet. The boy who wore frayed shorts and cracked slides all winter was now dressed in jeans and dark footwear—boots, I thought, but it was hard to tell in the dark. The light dusted the top of his head and his shoulders, but it left his face in shadow. It didn’t matter. I knew it was him.

He twisted at the waist, hiking up the backpack he was wearing, and saw me.

I knew he saw me because he froze mid-twist, his whole body locking up in an instant. He stayed like that for a moment. Then he squared his shoulders and came toward me.

“Oh, hi, Keme,” I said in what had to be the least convincing attempt at acting natural in the history of the world.

He planted himself in front of me and folded his arms. “Go away.”

“Um, no?” It wasn’t supposed to sound like a question, but you try sounding firm and authoritative when Keme’s bottomless dark eyes are staring back at you. After Indira’s bracing little speech, though—which had mostly consisted of Don’t be a coward —I felt obligated to add, “I’m glad I caught you. I was hoping you’d come home so we could talk about this.”

He stared at me for five more seconds before he turned and strode back toward the bus stop.

Because I didn’t have any better ideas, I followed him.

“I know you’re, uh, upset,” I said as I trotted along at his heels. “And that’s totally understandable. Totally. I, like, completely get it. I was mad too when—okay, could you slow down? I was mad too when they thought I killed Vivienne, and—and I know it’s different because you grew up here and everyone knows you and it’s so much worse when you realize the people you’ve spent your whole life with believe you’re capable of murder…” I trailed off when I heard myself industriously making this situation so much worse. “But, um, we love you, and we want you to come home. The end. End of speech. Finito.”

He stopped at the little Greyhound sign, shrugged his backpack up again, and stared across the street at an empty office that used to be a dry cleaner. A lone car whizzed past us. In its wake, the buzzing of the security light mounted high above the bus stop seemed louder than before.

“So,” I said, “great talk. Why don’t we get some ice cream and wait—”

“No.”

“Okay, we could get some popcorn from the concession stand in the lobby, I guess. Oh! And Red Hots—”

He rounded on me so abruptly that I rocked back on my heels. “Go. Away.”

“Keme, I know—”

“You don’t know anything! I’m not going back there!” He looked like he tried to stop there, but after a beat, words hot with frustration slipped out of him. “Leave me alone!”

Silence again. And the droning sound of the light overhead.

“What about Indira?” I said. “You’re going to break her heart.”

“She understands,” Keme muttered, but he couldn’t look at me.

“What about Bobby? What about Fox?”

He looked smaller now, huddling against the cold.

“What about Millie?”

He made an ugly noise. And then he spat.

I wasn’t sure why, but that made my brain go red. “That’s really nice, Keme. She’s bawling her eyes out back at Hemlock House because you’re leaving, but I guess that doesn’t matter to you.”

He shook his head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “You don’t care that she wants you to stay?”

“Nope.”

“Poppycock.” (I mean, that’s kind of what I said.) “I’m supposed to believe that you don’t care that your best friend in the entire world—”

His head came up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“—the girl you spend every waking minute with—”

Keme’s gaze swung back to me. “Stop talking.”

“—the girl you’re desperately in love—”

“I said shut up!” The scream was so loud it got mangled in his throat. “Shut up!”

Across the parking lot, a family of four glanced over at the sound of Keme’s cry, slowing to watch.

“No,” I said, but I lowered my voice. “No, I’m not going to shut up. You can pretend nobody else knows, and you can pretend she doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’ve seen you with her, Keme. I know how you feel. And I get that it’s hard right now. I get that you’re hurt, and it feels like everyone has abandoned you, and Millie is dating Louis—and I know how hard that is, because I went through it with Bobby. But I’m standing here right now, Keme. I came looking for you. Fox is looking for you. Bobby is looking for you. Indira is at home with Millie, hoping you’ll show up. Because we don’t want you to leave.” I drew a deep breath. “Did you even consider the fact that maybe Millie is dating Louis because she doesn’t know you’re interested in her as more than a friend? If she knew how you felt about her, Keme—”

He made an ugly, hocking noise, spat again, and shook his head.

“I know it’s scary,” I said, “but I think you owe it to both of you to give it a chance—”

“You think?” His voice had a flat, icy disregard that was worse than his shouting. “ You think? What do you know? You ran away, Dash. That’s the whole reason you’re here. You ran away. So don’t stand there and tell me you know how hard it is. You don’t know, because you ran.”

My face heated. I was distantly aware of the family of four settling into their minivan, doors clicking shut, the engine starting. The flashing lights of the marquee blurred, and I blinked to clear my eyes. “Yeah, I did. I ran. That’s how I know it doesn’t fix anything.” I cleared my throat. “But I stayed for Bobby, Keme. And I think you need to talk to her—”

“You’re so stupid,” he said in that same horrible, lifeless voice.

“—and tell her how you feel—”

“You’re a joke. You know that? This is pathetic, chasing after me because you don’t have a life of your own. Everyone thinks you’re pathetic.”

“—and I promise you, Keme, because I know it’s terrifying, that things are going to be okay. Millie loves you too, and once you tell her—”

He spun toward me again, and this time, I took a step back.

“I did tell her, you idiot! I went to that stupid party, and I told her! And you know what she said?” He paused, as though waiting for an answer, but I couldn't open my mouth. “She said she was dating Louis, but she hoped we could still be friends.” He stopped. Struggle twisted his face, in a moment of clarity cut out of the welter of emotions, I realized he was trying desperately not to cry. His voice was thick when he said, “And you know what her stupid boyfriend did? He and his friends followed me out of the house and jumped me.”

The night seemed to rush out from underneath us, like a dark tide pulling away. In that vast outwash, Keme looked very small, like he was already moving away from me. His chest rose and fell in savage breaths, and he stared at me. There was a challenge in that look. A fight that part of him, I could tell, wanted. A single tear escaped and slid down his cheek, and it glimmered under the security light before he dashed it away.

“But she wants to talk to you,” I said. The words were reflexive. They were full of my own hurt. And as soon as they were out of my mouth, I wanted to call them back because of how childish I sounded.

Keme shook his head. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the sheen of tears was gone, and they were dark again. The rattle of a diesel engine reached us, and he turned toward the street as the Greyhound came around the corner.

I stood there. I felt again like the world was washing out from under me. I’d read that the universe was still expanding. That it was still getting bigger. And that was this feeling. That the universe was nothing but objects trying to fly away from each other as fast as they could.

The Greyhound rolled to a stop, and the door opened. An older man in overalls and a satin Ducks jacket got down, followed by a pregnant woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty, her hair in pigtails under a train conductor’s cap. Another woman in a rumpled pantsuit followed, helping two children off after her. And then there was no one else, and Keme took a step forward.

Before my brain could catch up with me, I followed.

Keme must have noticed because he stopped and turned around. I stopped too. He waited. And then he turned to the bus. I followed again. He stopped. It’s like something off TV, a dull voice said at the back of my head. It’s like a skit we practiced.

“What are you doing?” Keme said.

“I don’t know.” But that wasn’t the right answer, so I said, “I’m going with you, I guess.”

A surprisingly adult weariness spread across his face. “Go home, Dash.”

But when he took a step, I did too.

“Knock it off,” Keme said as he turned to face me again.

“No.”

“You’re not going with me.”

“I am.” My own laughter startled me. “I know this is crazy, but I actually think I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

Another choreographed pair of steps.

“Dash!”

“No, let’s do this,” I said. “Come on, I’ll buy the tickets.” I started to step around him. “Where are we going—”

The shove caught me off guard. He was so much stronger than he looked, and I almost lost my balance. Where his hands had connected with my chest, a blunted ache was already taking shape, and I realized with something like shock that I was going to have bruises.

“You’re not going with me,” he said, the words so low I had to strain to hear them.

Another laugh worked its way out of me, shakier than the first one. “It’s a free country, Keme, I can go wherever I want—”

When I took another step, he shoved me again. Harder this time. I stumbled, my sneaker caught a crack in the sidewalk, and I fell. I landed hard on my tailbone, and the thud sent a jolt of pain up my spine.

“Hey,” the bus driver shouted, but his voice was muffled. “What’s going on down there? I’ll call the cops.”

Keme stared down at me. His eyes were blank, like he wasn’t seeing me. Rage made his features almost unrecognizable. I’d joked a lot over the last year and a half about being scared of Keme, but in that moment, the emptiness of his expression was the first time I’d truly felt afraid of him.

My chain of thought was automatic, the result of years of telling myself the same thing over and over again—because it was so often true, and because it had become truer, or seemed truer, the more I thought it. I was bad at relationships. I was bad at people. I could never read a situation right. All the years I’d spent with my anxiety spiking every time someone texted to invite me out, or every time I got cornered at a party, every interaction that made me question what I was supposed to say or do, what the other person wanted from me. It had been worst with Hugo, because there had been so much at stake, but that feeling of confusion and uncertainty and lack of confidence in my ability to have a healthy relationship—romantic or otherwise—went back as long as I could remember.

So, this was my fault. Again. I’d tried. I’d shown up for Keme, literally. I’d been brave, pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, because of what Indira had said. And what had happened? I’d made a fool out of myself. Keme hadn’t been waiting for someone to show up and love him. He hadn’t wanted a friend—or, at least, he hadn’t wanted me. The doubts from the last few days crept in again: we’d never really been friends, and all the bullying had been because I was exactly what he’d told me—a joke.

And then, through the pain of a bruised butt and bruised pride, I heard myself saying only a few minutes before, It feels like everyone has abandoned you .

His dad, who had died when he was a child.

His mom, who was always disappearing into her pills, or into the next man, or into herself.

Bobby.

Millie.

And Indira saying, He’s not trying to tell you something . He’s trying to ask you something .

I planted my hands on the sidewalk.

“Stay down,” Keme said. He was opening and closing his fists at his sides, and in the cold air, his breath burst from him in white shreds.

“No,” I said. The word came out sounding surprisingly confident—surprising to me, anyway. But everything in that moment felt surprising: the rawness of my scraped palms, the frozen grit of the sidewalk as I pushed myself up, even the ache where I’d landed. “I’m going with you—”

Before I could get upright, Keme shoved me down again.

“Hey!” The Greyhound driver honked the horn. “Hey! You don’t knock it off, and I’m leaving without you!”

“Go home,” Keme said. He’d moved. Or I had. Or maybe the bus. Because now he was standing in front of the headlights, and his silhouette was crisp-cut against the rest of the night. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

I shook my head. I gathered myself. “I’m going with—”

He shoved me down again. Harder, this time. And when I hit the ground, the force of the push flattened me, and my head cracked against the sidewalk.

Shadows moved over me. Clothing rustled next to me. Someone’s breathing sounded close and wet and labored. In the distance, air brakes popped, and gears made a grinding noise. There was something hot at the back of my head, but my neck was cold.

“Just leave me alone,” Keme said, his anger thinned out by—what? “I just want you to leave me alone.” And then he rose from his crouch, and I realized the shadow over me had been him, and I stared up at the ice sheet of stars.

He was asking me a question.

Over the rumble of the bus, the sound of his steps clipping away came back to me very clearly.

The thought came again with dreamlike lucidity: He was asking me a question.

Somehow, I rolled onto my side.

His dad.

His mom.

Millie.

Even—if only in Keme’s mind—Bobby.

I focused on getting on my hands and knees. That sense of wetness curled along my nape, ran warm then cold over the side of my neck. The bus was rattling so loudly that the noise seemed to take up all the space inside my skull, and when I moved, the world seemed to zoom in and out greasily. Darkness irised shut at the edges of my vision. Adrenaline, that little writer voice said at the back of my head. And maybe a touch of shock.

But somehow, I got to my feet.

Because he was asking me a question.

And I was going to answer it.

My vision was still doing that weird zooming thing, and for what felt like a long time, I couldn’t seem to find him. Then I did. He was lit from the side by the glow of the headlight. His face was twisted with an expression familiar from long hours of watching me be unbelievably terrible at Xbox—like I was too stupid to survive. He made a drawn-out sound in his throat, the pitch rising toward the end, and took a threatening step toward me.

“I’m not leaving,” I said. The words hung in the emptiness of the night, like the string of a tin can phone stretching out between us.

Keme took another of those challenging steps. “Why are you so stupid? I don’t want you to go with me. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody.”

I nodded. It made silent fireworks go off inside my head—no pain, only those bright, disorienting flashes.

Keme advanced again. “Don’t just stand there!”

I probably should have said something to that, but I seemed to have run out of words.

He reached me on the next step. Over his shoulder, the bus seemed to float, lit up inside with low-wattage light like the world’s grimmest UFO. The driver had gotten out of his seat and was staring at us. And maybe it was the concussion talking, but I could have sworn he was holding a carpet sweeper like a baseball bat.

“You’re a loser,” Keme said. His breath was hot in my face, white, whipping away on the breeze. “You’re so freaking sad. Do you have any idea how pathetic you are?”

He shoved me, but his heart seemed to have gone out of it—it was barely a push, and even in my current condition, it didn’t move me. He pushed me again, and this time I caught his wrist.

“I don’t need you,” Keme said. His voice was coming apart the way paper did when it got wet. “I don’t need anybody!”

My hand was still latched on to his wrist. I pulled, and he came.

“I hate you,” he said. “I hate you!”

He shoved me again as I drew him into a hug.

For one long moment, he was a bundle of wiry muscles and raised hackles and, God, so many elbows. And then he collapsed against me and started to sob.