Текст книги "Since You've Been Gone"

Автор книги: Morgan Matson

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“Hey,” I stammered when I realized I had been staring at him silently for a moment too long. Frank was looking at me, like he was waiting for something, and I remembered, much too late, that he’d asked me a question, and I still hadn’t answered it. “I mean, good.”

“Did you need these?” Frank asked, lifting the shoes. I couldn’t think why I would, and shook my head. “Oh,” he said, retracting them. “I heard someone over here needed climbing shoes, and I thought it was you. I guessed on the size.” He glanced down at my flip-flops, and I did too, then immediately wished I had gotten a pedicure recently, as the vestiges of the last one I’d gotten with Sloane—bright red, with a cat done in black dots on the big toe—had mostly chipped off. “But was I at least right?” he asked, looking up from my feet. “Size eight?”

“Um,” I said. I realized that I was waiting for someone else to jump in and direct this interaction, but unfortunately, there was just me, doing a very poor job of it. If Sloane had been here, she would have known what to say. Something funny, something flirty, and then I would have known what to say too, whether to chime in, or make the kind of joke I only ever seemed to be able to make around her. I didn’t know how to do this by myself, and I didn’t want to have to learn. Also, I didn’t think I’d exchanged more than a few sentences with Frank Porter in three years, so I wasn’t sure how we were spending this much time talking about the size of my feet. Which was, incidentally, something I wasn’t super thrilled to be talking about, since they were bigger than I liked. “It’s just because you’re tall,” Sloane had always said to me, with the confidence of someone with tiny feet. “Otherwise, you’d look weird. Or tip over.”

“Nine,” I said finally, leaving off the and a half because, really, why did Frank Porter need to know my shoe size?

He shrugged. “Well, I’m still learning the ropes.” If Sloane had been next to me, I would have said So to speakor That’s for sureor some other punny remark, since there were actual ropes here and Frank had pretty much opened up the door for a joke like that. But she wasn’t, so I just looked away, trying to find my brother somewhere on the line for the climbing wall, so that I could just verify that he was okay and I could leave.

“Porter!” We both turned and I saw Matt Collins, who I knew from school but wasn’t sure I’d ever spoken to, dangling in midair from one of the rappelling ropes. He was wearing a T-shirt like Frank’s, along with a bright-red helmet, and was turning slowly on his rope, kicking at the wall to spin himself around. “Tonight. We’re hitting the Orchard, right?”

The Orchard had, at one point, been a functioning orchard, but the land was now just sitting empty, and it had become the place for parties, especially in the summer. It had the benefit of existing in the hazy border between Stanwich and Hartfield, the next town over, which meant the cops tended to stay away, mostly because, rumor went, nobody was sure whose jurisdiction it was. I had gone a few times, mostly that spring, when it had been Sloane and Sam and me and Gideon. The Orchard conjured, for me, memories of sitting close to Gideon and rolling a bottle between my palms, trying to think of something to say.

Frank nodded, and Collins—even though his name was Matthew, everyone, even teachers at school, called him by his last name—grinned. “Aw yeah,” he said. “The C-dawg’s going to meet some sweet ladies to-night!”

The woman climbing next to him, who looked like she was in her thirties, with impressive and serious climbing gear on, frowned at him, but Collins just smiled wider at her. “And how are youtoday?”

Frank just sighed and shook his head.

“Well,” I said, starting to edge toward the exit. Even though I couldn’t see Beckett, I was sure he was fine. And I really didn’t want to keep having this incredibly awkward conversation with Frank Porter. I needed to get to Stanwich Avenue, and I’d already spent much more time here than I’d planned on. “I should . . .” I nodded toward the door, taking a step toward it, hoping Frank didn’t feel like he had to keep talking to me just because he thought I was a customer.

“Right,” Frank said, tucking the unnecessary, too-small shoes under his arm. “It was nice to—”

“ Heya!” Collins ran up to us at full speed and crashed into Frank, nearly toppling him over and knocking himself off-balance, windmilling his arms to stay upright. He was still wearing his helmet, which didn’t really do a lot for him. Collins was a head shorter than Frank—it looked like he was even a little shorter than me—and on the heavier side, with a round face, a snub nose, and dark blond hair.

“Collins,” Frank said in a resigned tone of voice, as he helped to steady him.

“So what’s up? What are we talking about?” Collins asked, his eyes darting over to me. He frowned for a moment, then smiled wide. “Hey,” he said. “I know you. Where’s your friend? It’s Emma, right?”

“Emily,” Frank corrected him, “Emily Hughes.” I looked over at him, shocked that Frank knew my last name. “And I thought you were supposed to be spotting on the wall.”

“This guy,” Collins said, as he clapped a hand on Frank’s shoulder. He turned to me and shook his head. “I mean, I’ve been here a month and he’s here two weeks and is already ready to run thing s. So impressive!”

“Spotting?” Frank persisted, but Collins just waved this away.

“Everyone’s fine,” he said. “And I actually wasspotting. I spottedyou two talking over here and I wanted to join the convo. So what’s the word?” He looked over at the shoes under Frank’s arm. “You climbing?” he asked me. Without waiting for a reply, he took the shoes from Frank, looked down at my feet, then at the back of the shoes where the size was written. “Not with these you’re not. I’m guessing you’re more like, what, a nine and a half?”

I just looked down at my feet for a second, letting my hair swing forward and cover my face, which I had a feeling was bright red. Did I have to respond to that? People weren’t under any obligation to admit to their shoe size, were they? But I had a feeling that if I tried to deny it, Collins would challenge me to put the smaller shoes on, and would probably soon be taking wagers from onlookers. I took another step away and started to turn for the door, when the scream ripped through the air, overpowering the techno. It sounded markedly different from the happier yells that, I realized, had just become background noise. The three of us turned in its direction, and I saw that it had come from the serious climbing woman, who was leaning back in her harness and pointing up at the very top of the wall—where my brother, I realized with my heart sinking, was merrily walking.

“Holy crap,” Collins said, his mouth hanging open. “How’d that kid get up there? And where’s his harness? Or helmet?”

Before I could say anything, Frank and Collins had taken off in the direction of the wall, and I followed. A crowd had gathered, and most of the climbers were rappelling down, out of the way.

“Emily!” Beckett yelled, waving at me, his voice echoing in the huge space. “Look how high I am!”

Both Frank and Collins looked at me, and I twisted my hands behind my back. “So, that’s my brother,” I said. I tried to think of something to follow this, like some explanation as to why he was currently humiliating me and jeopardizing IndoorXtreme’s insurance policy, but nothing else came.

“What’s his name?” Collins asked.

“Beckett,” I said. “But I’m sure he’s fine. He just—”

“Bucket?” Collins asked, then nodded as though this made sense. “Hey, Bucket!” he yelled up at my brother. “I’m gonna need you to come down from there, okay? Wait,” he said, shaking his head. “First, put your helmet back on and come down. Actually,” he amended, taking a small step closer, “first put on your harness, thenyour helmet, then come on down from there. All right?”

Beckett looked down at the crowd that was now staring up at him, then at me, and I tried to silently convey to him that he should absolutely do this, and as quickly as possible.

“Okay,” he said with a shrug, picking up his harness and snapping himself back into it.

The people below seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief and the crowd began to break up, people starting to climb the wall again or heading back to the bike course.

“See? All good,” Collins said, waving up at my brother, who was buckling the chin strap underneath his helmet.

“This is why you were supposed to be spotting,” Frank said, shaking his head as he strode toward the climbing wall.

“He’s coming down,” Collins pointed out, and my brother had indeed started to find the first foot– and handholds to take him back down to earth. “You don’t need to go up there.” But either Frank didn’t hear this or chose to ignore it, because he started climbing up the wall with a sense of purpose, heading toward Beckett. “Ruh-roh,” Collins said quietly, looking up at the climbing wall, his brow furrowed.

“It’s really okay,” I said. “My brother climbs stuff that high all the time.”

“I’m not worried about Bucket,” Collins said. “I’m worried about Porter.”

I looked up at the wall. Frank was almost halfway up now, moving his hands easily from one handhold to the next. He seemed fine to me. “Um, why?”

Collins took off his helmet, and wiped his hand across his forehead. His hair was dark from sweat and plastered down against his head, making him look like he had a bowl cut. It wasn’t the best look on him. “Porter’s got a fear of heights.”

I looked around, at all the many things in this establishment that would involve climbing or skating or jumping over high things. “Oh,” I said. I tried to think of some way to ask why he worked here without being insulting. “But . . .”

“I know,” Collins said, talking fast, sounding defensive. “My uncle said the same thing when I got Porter the job. But he’s greatwith all things paintball,” he said, and I nodded, wishing I’d never said anything. “And there’s nobody better at the bike course,” he went on. “Dude can straighten jumps like nobody’s business. Also, he’s the most competent one here, so that’s why he’s the one in charge of the bank deposits. I was terribleat that.” I nodded; I could easily believe this. “But heights?” Collins leaned a little closer to me and shook his head. “Not his strong suit.”

I looked up at Frank, who was now pretty high, almost at the level of Beckett. “Then why is he climbing?” I asked, feeling myself get a little panicky on Frank’s behalf.

“Because he’s Frank Porter,” Collins said, and I heard a note of  bitterness in his voice for the first time.  “Captain Responsible.”

I looked back at the wall, thinking that despite this, maybe things would be okay—when I saw Frank reach for the next handhold, glance down, and freeze, his arm still extended.

“Told you,” Collins said softly, not taking any pleasure in the statement.

Frank was now holding on to the wall with both hands, but he still wasn’t moving. “What happens now?” I asked, feeling like I was seeing something that I really shouldn’t be.

“Well, sometimes he pulls it together,” Collins said, his voice still quiet. “Otherwise, there’s a big ladder in the back.”

“Oh no,” I said, trying to look away but finding that it was impossible. It was clear to me that this was all because of Beckett—which meant, as far as Frank Porter was concerned, it was all because of me.

“I know,” Collins said, wincing.

Beckett had now reached the same level as Frank, and he said something to him that I couldn’t hear. Beckett kept on climbing down and I realized that he was now below Frank, who still hadn’t moved.

Doug from the front desk had come out to stare at the spectacle, his book abandoned on the counter. “Ladder?” he asked Collins, who nodded.

“I think so,” he said.

A second later, though, Beckett changed direction and climbed back up until he was level with Frank again. He said something to him, and Frank shook his head. But my brother stayed where he was, still talking to Frank. And after a long pause, Frank reached down for the handhold just below him. Beckett nodded, climbed down two handholds, and motioned for Frank to come down to where he was, pointing out the footholds. After another pause, Frank moved down to the next level again. It was painfully clear to me that my ten-year-old brother was talking the IndoorXtreme employee down the climbing wall, and I just hoped that it wasn’t as obvious to everyone else in the facility.

“Nice,” Collins said, as he watched the progress—slow, but incremental—on the wall. “Does your brother need a job?”

“Ha ha,” I said a little hollowly. I was watching with a tight feeling in my chest, and I didn’t really let out a full breath until Beckett jumped the last few feet to the ground and then looked up at Frank Porter, pointing out the remaining handholds for him and giving him an encouraging thumbs-up. Frank half stumbled down to the ground, and when he turned around, I could see that his face was almost as red as his helmet. Doug shrugged, then turned and trudged back to the register.

“Porter!” Collins yelled. “You complete moron. I thought I was going to have to get the ladder and pull you out like a damn cat!” The worried friend who had been there just moments before was gone, and I realized Collins had changed back into the guy I was used to from school, the one who was constantly pulling pranks and asking out the most popular girls in highly public ways that invariably backfired.

“Beckett,” I called, gesturing for him to come to me. My bother nodded, unclipped himself from his harness, and held up his hand for a high-five, which Frank listlessly returned. Now that he was safely on the ground, I could practically feel the embarrassment coming off Frank in waves.

Beckett reached me, and I grabbed him by the neck of his T-shirt, not wanting to let him out of my sight, in case he decided to scale the half-pipe or something. “See you around,” I said to Collins, just out of habit, but without any expectation that this would be true.

“Yeah,” Collins said, and I could tell he was saying this the same way—just something you say, not something you mean. “Sure.” He headed toward Frank, who was still standing by the wall, and I watched him go for a moment before I looked down at my brother, who had the sense to at least pretend to look ashamed of himself.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I just wanted to see the view from the top, and—”

“Let’s go,” I said, steering him toward the front counter, Beckett dragging his feet and talking fast, trying to stall.

“We don’t have to leave,” he said. “I just won’t go on the wall. I can still do the bike course, right? Em?”

I didn’t even respond to this as we reached the counter and Beckett pulled off his climbing shoes. I wasn’t happy about leaving, because it meant I probably wouldn’t get to Sloane’s list today. But I had a feeling that even if I didn’t take Beckett away, he might be asked to leave, making this even more embarrassing than it already was. I pushed Beckett’s climbing shoes across to Doug, who was back to reading his paperback. A Murder of Crows, the cover read, featuring a fierce-looking bird about to alight on a flaming sword. He stood and got Beckett’s sneakers without looking up from his book.

“But, Emily,” Beckett whined.

I just shook my head. And we walked out to my car in silence as I tried to steel myself for what I was going to have to do. I usually didn’t play the Big Sister card—Beckett and I got along fine, mostly because there were seven years between us, we’d never been competing for the same things, and I usually felt more like his babysitter than his sibling. But this was one of the instances where I knew I had to do it, since my parents certainly weren’t going to step up, not right when they’d begun a play. I put the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it yet as I faced my brother, who was sitting cross-legged on the seat, glaring down at his hands. “Beck, you can’t do stuff like that,” I said. I suddenly wondered if it would have been better if Beckett had gotten hurt at some point during the years he’d been climbing, so he’d have a healthy degree of fear, or at least some understanding of the consequences. “You shouldn’t be taking risks like that. I don’t care what you climb at home. There were other people around. You could have been hurt, or you could have hurt them. It’s called being reckless.”

I started the car and headed home, Beckett not speaking, still looking down. I knew he was mad at me and figured he would probably sulk the rest of the drive, so I was surprised when he spoke up as I turned onto our street.

“But I wasn’t,” Beckett said. I wasn’t sure what he meant, and it must have been clear, because he went on, “I wasn’t hurt. Nobody else was, either. And I got to see a really great view. So what’s that called?”

I just shook my head, knowing somehow that there was a flaw in his logic, but not exactly sure how to articulate what it was. “Just . . .”

“I know, I know, be more careful,” he said as I pulled in to the driveway. He contradicted this immediately, though, unbuckling his seat belt and jumping out before I’d even put the car in park. “I’m going to Annabel’s. See you later,” he yelled as he slammed the door and took off running behind our house. Annabel lived at the other end of the block, and she and Beckett had spent most of last summer finding shortcuts between the two houses that they guarded closely and refused to disclose.

I watched him go, then picked up my phone. I had pressed the button to call Sloane automatically, when I realized what I was doing. I hung up—but not before I’d heard the phone was still going directly to her voice mail, the one that I’d heard a thousand times, the one that she’d recorded with me next to her as we walked down the street. Toward the end, you could hear me laughing. I set the phone down on the passenger seat, out of easy reach. But it always felt like nothing had really happened until I’d talked to Sloane about it. I was used to recapping my experiences to her, and then going through them, moment by moment. And if she’d been here, or on the other end of the phone, I could have told her how bizarre it was that Frank Porter was working at IndoorXtreme, about Collins, and what I’d heard about their evening plans—

I suddenly understood something and glanced up at my bedroom window, picturing the list in my drawer. I got now what Sloane meant by number twelve. It wasn’t just a bizarre fruit-gathering mission. She wanted me to go to the Orchard.

I waited until ten before I left. By this point, Beckett was in bed and my parents had retreated to their study at the top of the house. All their patterns from a few years ago were coming back, and this was how they had worked then: they would write all day in the dining room, usually forgetting about dinner, and then head upstairs, where they would go over that day’s pages and plan out the next day.

When I was thirteen, the last time this had happened, it wasn’t like I’d had much of a social life, or anywhere at all to go at night, so I’d never explored the possibilities their writing afforded. But now, things were different. During the school year, I had a pretty strict midnight curfew that Sloane—who had no curfew whatsoever—had figured all kinds of techniques for getting around. Now that my parents were otherwise occupied, I had a feeling my curfew had become more theoretical than something that would be enforced. But just in case, I scrawled a note and left it up against the TV in the kitchen, so if they found me gone, they wouldn’t call the police.

As I’d gotten ready in my room—this basically just meant putting on jeans instead of shorts, grabbing a sweatshirt, and adding a swipe of lip gloss—I’d stared down at the list. While I still didn’t understand a few of the others, I reallydidn’t get this one. It didn’t seem like it was going to be a challenge, since it wasn’t like I’d never been to the Orchard before. We’d gone there one afternoon a week before I went upstate and Sloane disappeared. We’d had milkshakes—vanilla for me, coffee for her—and lain out on the picnic tables for hours in the sun, just talking. We’d been a number of times this past spring, usually at night, but occasionally during the day, when Sloane wanted a place where we could hang out in peace, working on our tans or just walking up and down the rows of trees, talking about anything that came to our minds.

I kept the Volvo’s lights off until I reached the street, even though the curtains in my parents’ study were drawn. And once I’d made it down the street without my cell lighting up with calls and texts asking me where I thought I was going, I figured that I was in the clear.

I turned my lights on and my music up, a Luke Bryan album I’d downloaded last month but not listened to until now, and headed in the direction of the Orchard. I was halfway through the album when I turned off the main road and on to the side street that would lead me there. Out here, the houses got farther and farther apart until there was nothing but empty land and, tucked away on an almost-hidden drive, the Orchard. I slowed as I got closer. The entrance was always, by design I was sure, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. I was contemplating turning around and backtracking when I saw the fading sign and the narrow gravel driveway. I put on my blinker, even though I hadn’t seen any other cars on the road, and turned in, pausing for a moment to look at the sign.

It was almost lost in the overgrown bushes on the side of the road, and so faded with weather and time that whole parts of it could barely be seen. Without meaning to, I glanced down at the underside of my wrist before looking away and driving on.

MARCH

Three months earlier

“It’s just up here,” Sloane said as she turned around in the car to face me, pointing. “See the driveway?”

“I can’t believe you’ve never been to the Orchard,” Sam said from the driver’s seat, and I heard the capital letter in his tone.

“No, remember?” Sloane asked, and I could hear a laugh tucked somewhere in the edges of her words. “Because I’d never been before we came here last month.”

“That doesn’t mean Emily couldn’t have gone on her own,” Sam said, shaking his head. Sloane turned her head back to look at me again and we exchanged the tiniest of smiles—probably not even perceptible to anyone but us. I didn’t want to contradict Sam, or argue with him, but of courseI wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t been here with Sloane, and we both knew it.

She raised her eyebrows at me with a bigger smile, and I understood her meaning perfectly—she was asking something like You’re having fun, right? Isn’t this great? Are you okay?

I smiled back at her, a real smile and not an I need a rescuesmile. The last thing I wanted was to upset the evening that she’d worked so hard to arrange. Her smile widened, and she turned back to Sam, moving as close to him as her seatbelt would let her, reaching over and running her hand through his curly hair.

Gideon and I were sitting on opposite ends of the backseat, in contrast to the snuggling that was going on in the front. I was half on the seat and half pressed against the door handle, which probably wasn’t really necessary, as we were riding in an enormous SUV and it looked like there was probably room for several people in the space between us. I looked across the expanse of the dark backseat at Gideon, who I had met just a few hours before.

Sloane had been talking up Gideon Baker for weeks, ever since she and Sam had become whatever they were now. “We don’t need a label,” Sloane had said, when I’d tentatively asked what, exactly, they were doing. She’d smiled at me and straightened her vintage cardigan. “You know I hate those.” But when whatever they were doing had become more serious, suddenly I had started hearing a lot about Gideon, Sam’s best friend, who was also single. And wouldn’t it be so great if . . . ?

That sentence had always trailed off, never really stating what exactly she was asking, but always with a hopeful question mark at the end. Somewhere along the line, I’d agreed that it wouldbe so great, which was how I now found myself wearing more makeup than usual, sharing a backseat with Gideon, going to someplace called the Orchard.

Gideon took up a lot of space in the car—he was tall, with broad shoulders and big hands and feet, and when we’d been sitting across from each other in the diner booth an hour before, and Sloane had been stealing fries off Sam’s plate, I’d asked him if he played any sports. He looked like an athlete—I could practically see him featured on the Stanwich Academy website, a lacrosse stick slung over one shoulder. But he’d just taken a bite of his burger as I asked this. He’d chewed, swallowed, taken a sip of Coke, wiped his mouth, then said, “No.” And that had pretty much been the extent of our conversation so far.

“What is this?” Sam asked, letting out a sigh as he slammed on the brakes. I leaned forward and saw that we were now behind a long line of cars, and that there was a bottleneck around the entrance to a gravel driveway.

“It just means that this is clearlythe place to be,” Sloane said, and I could hear in her voice how happy she was. Happy we were going there, happy to be with Sam, happy that I was there in the back, with a boy of my own, not a third wheel.

We edged closer to the turnoff, Sam sighing loudly and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I glanced across the car at Gideon again, trying to think of something to say, when I saw the sign. It was out his window, and I edged a little away from my door handle, trying to get a better look. It was dark out, but the SUV’s headlights—which were sci-fi bright, and also clearly made out of something expensive and fancy, unlike my Volvo’s regular old lights—were right on it, illuminating it.

“Do you guys see that?” I asked, pointing at the sign, aware as I did so that my voice felt a little scratchy—it was the first thing I’d said during the car ride. Everyone turned to look, but Sam just shrugged.

“It’s the sign from when this used to be an actual orchard,” he said. “It’s always been there.”

I moved over a little farther into the middle, trying to get a closer look. It was mostly faded, but you could tell that it had been brightly painted at some point. Kilmer’s Orchards!it read in stylized script. Apples/Peaches/Cherries. Berries in Season! Pies!Underneath this, there was a cartoon-style drawing of two cherries, attached at the stem. They had faces and were smiling big, looking up like they were reading the message at the top. I looked at all the exclamation points, now faded and unnecessary, selling a product that no longer existed. You could also tell the sign had been hand-painted, and not by a professional—the cherries were admittedly a bit lopsided—which somehow made things worse.

“What?” Sloane asked. I glanced over at her, and saw she was looking at me, and that she could tell something was wrong.

“Just . . . that sign,” I said, hearing how silly it sounded. It was something I would have said easily if it were just Sloane and myself, but the presence of the guys in the car changed this. “I don’t know,” I said, forcing a laugh and moving back to my side of the seat. “It just . . . seemed really sad, I guess.”

Sloane had started to reply when Sam laughed and drove on, talking over her. “It’s just a sign, Emily.”

“I know,” I said, trying to keep my voice light as I looked out my own window. “Never mind.”

Sam leaned over and said something I couldn’t hear to Sloane, and I watched the trees passing slowly in the darkness. I was wishing I’d never said anything at all when I felt something touch my arm.

I jumped, and looked over to see Gideon, his seat belt unbuckled, suddenly sitting close to me, right in the center seat. He gave me a half smile, then picked up my arm and brought it a little nearer to him.

He had literally kept his distance from me all night—so why was he holding my arm? I took a breath to say something when he pulled a thin Sharpie from his pocket. He nodded down at my arm, and then held up the marker, like he was asking if it was okay.

I nodded, mostly just because I was so thrown. He uncapped the marker, then started drawing on the inside of my wrist. The marker strokes felt feathery and light against my skin, almost tickling me but not quite. I tried to lean over to see what Gideon was drawing, but he pulled my arm a little closer to him and turned it slightly, carefully toward him and away from me. I was still trying to get my head around the fact that this was happening, and I was suddenly glad that Sloane and Sam were oblivious in the front seat, because I knew how strange this must look.

Gideon’s head was bent over my arm as he worked, and I couldn’t help but notice the texture of his dark hair, so short it was almost a buzz cut, and how big his hands were, how it seemed like, if he’d wanted to, he could totally encircle my wrist with two fingers. The car lurched over a bump, and my arm flew up, almost smacking him in the face. He looked over at me and I gave him a tiny, apologetic smile. He waited a moment, steadying my arm, holding it with both hands—maybe to make sure there were no more bumps—and then started working again, drawing faster than before. He straightened up and capped his Sharpie just as Sam parked the car.

I pulled my hand back to see what he’d done and saw, to my surprise, that he’d drawn the cherries from the sign. He was clearly a much more talented artist than the sign painter, but he’d managed to capture them perfectly in their slightly irregular glory. One of the cherries was saying something, and I lifted my wrist closer to my face to see what it was.

Don’t worry, Emily! We’re not sad!

I smiled at that, running my fingers over the words, their neat block print. I looked up at Gideon, who was still sitting close to me. “Thank you,” I said.

Sam cut the engine, and the car’s interior lights flared on. I could see Gideon much more clearly now as he ducked his head like he was embarrassed and slid over to his side of the car. But before the lights started to dim again, I saw him smile back at me.