Page 123 of What Boys Learn

Headshake. Hard swallow.

“Okay,” she says, hands touching my hips from behind, like each knobby side of my pelvis is a handle. I flinch. “Oh my god, sorry.” She pulls her hands away. “That’s how my dad and I pass each other. I shouldn’t have—”

“No,” I huff. Now I sound like I have asthma on top of everything else. “It’s okay.”

The sailboat leans hard left and I fall into the table and she falls into me, but it’s not sexy or cute. I don’t like all these sudden movements. I’ve punched kids for less.

You’re a man now, Dr. C likes to tell me.New rights, new responsibilities.

It takes a second to rebalance ourselves.

“Andthat’swhy I just grabbed on to you,” she says, laughing. “For stability. To prevent what just happened.” She claps once. “Okay! We need something to drink. Did your uncle mention the sugar thing because you have a problem? Just like diabetes, I mean.” She looks over my shoulder, out through the low narrow doorway. “The waves are getting rougher. Maybe not the best day to be out here. It’s still hot as balls but it’s that sort of gray-white muggy hot, you know? Maybe that’s what’s making you sick.”

She’s so busy taking care of me that she’s forgotten about herself. As girls do.

Lenora opens a cooler under the small table and pulls out what looks like a big juice container—screw-top, no label—and two red plastic cups. She sniffs. “Lemonade? This must be what we’re supposed to drink.”

She hands me a cup, fills it, fills her own. Sips.

“Hm. I’m gonna say there’s vodka in this.”

She peers out toward Matt-Troy-Dr. C, occupied at the tiller, wind whipping his smug smiling face.

“All right,” she says with a cute little grin, like we’re getting away with something. “I’m game.”

Sedation is your friend, Dr. C kept saying to me on the drive.And don’t forget what I told you about phones.

46

ABBY

Istarted with the office. Through the closed window, my phone light swept over left-behind objects, lengthening their shadows. Stacks of books were lined up against the wall. The desk was still there, too, topped with miscellaneous items. I never thought a hole puncher would give me hope, but this one did. I needed proof that Curtis had left in a hurry, too busy to empty those desk drawers. Somewhere there could be an envelope from his father, a printout of an air itinerary. Anything with an address or a destination. Anything to stop me from heading the wrong direction.

I squatted and looked around for anything big and hard enough to break a window, but I couldn’t find a single rock, only thick, luxuriant grass. I slapped a mosquito on my neck and felt the wetness on my fingers, just a squishy touch. It was enough to make me grimace. I was a wuss. No tolerance for even a little blood or violence of any kind. But was that true?

With mosquitoes feasting on my bare ankles, I felt my body filling with hatred—like it was flowing through my veins, pumping into my muscles, preparing them for action. The sane part of me said I should breathe deeply—let it all flow back out. Find calm. But I didn’t want to find calm. I wanted to find Curtis and face him. And then I wanted to bring back my boy.

I pushed on the window and it slid to one side, so effortlessly it almost made me laugh. Of course he’d leave the windows unlocked. What did he ever have to fear? This was a posh community, and he was a man.

The screen popped off easily. I jumped up and wiggled inside, scraping my leg across the sill and landing inside with an awkward grunt.

In seconds, my elation soured. One drawer and the next—empty or almost, save for some paper clips and loose change. I swept a hand through the deepest drawer and managed only to press my thumb against a tack. Swearing, I knelt down, sucking the sore spot. There, under the desk, was the dictation machine, still connected by a long cord to a spindly headset. I aimed my phone light and saw a microcassette tape, still inside. I popped it out to take a look. No label, but it had to be recent.

It wasn’t what I’d come for, but I’d take anything that gave me a sense of control over my secrets, which were never meant to be in his hands. But what if Curtis had recorded sessions after mine? A small box of twenty or more tapes was farther under the desk. I couldn’t fit them all in my pockets. I didn’t want to leave any sure sign I’d stolen something. One missing tape could be overlooked, but a whole box?

My phone lit up with a text from Robert. I covered it quickly with my hand, not wanting the glare to fill up the room.

I found the address. Father is a doc who closed his practice a few years ago. Retired now. I know a cop in the area who will be on duty starting 6 a.m. Friend of a friend. I can ask him to do a drive-by.

The relief poured through me. I typedThanks. I considered adding a heart, but I pressed Send instead.

Robert followed up:My advice we don’t make a scene. You know how Benjamin will react if we came up there no reason or do anything in a panic.

It was nearly over, then. We’d wait for the cop’s report, then drive up by midmorning and pretend we were in the area, just sightseeing and checking in. Robert had found Curtis, or at least Curtis’s father. Things were going to be okay.

I didn’t need scraps of paper after all, but I didn’t regret breaking and entering. My glance fell on the dictation machine again. I had time.

Crouched under the desk, I reinserted the tape and started listening to the words I’d already read in the transcript. From the very start, my slurred voice surprised me. I sounded drunk. Not hypnotized. Drunk, or drugged from that tea he’d encouraged me to drink, tocalm me down, of course. Even Benjamin had noticed I came out of Curtis’s office a little loopy. No wonder I’d felt so weird later that night, all the way through making dinner. The tape captured the halting quality of my words and the lengthening gaps between them, as Curtis barely acknowledged my soft and senseless rambling.