walked off. “Her new best friends. Meghan lives over on that short street off Burberry? You know it? The dead end. Call Aubrey’s cell. I’m sure you’ll reach her.”
He turns and gives me that same intense look he gave me earlier, like he’s super-worried, then shakes his head as if it’s none of his business. But he was leaving a minute ago, and he’s still sitting here now, and I don’t have a clue what to do.
“It sure is weird to be back in this place, you know?” he says after a few seconds of silence. “Like you can never go home again, or something like that.” He kicks the wall with his tennis shoe, and it occurs to me I don’t even know if he’s still playing or not, whether he sits or gets on the court. I don’t know how the Sudan was. I don’t know anything. I should ask him. About classes and sports and stuff, about wherever the hell it was he went last December.
“Yeah, more than you know,” I say instead, but my words barely come out. I stare out past his car to the center mound. The poplar leaves catch a soft gust making their gray shadows shimmy on the ground. I glance at my cell, wondering where Max is; if, mercifully, he decided not to come.
“You’d better go get your sister,” I say. “I forgot the reception sucks around here lately. Even if you text her, she may not get it. It’s the big blue house at the end of that block.”
“Okay,” he says. “I could give you a lift home?”
The question holds hope, or maybe just worry.
“No, I’m good. Turns out, I’m waiting for someone.”
“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow, and I want to laugh, or maybe punch him. Tell him to go fuck himself. Does he think he’s the only guy who ever liked me?
“Yeah, I’m good here,” I say, and wait for him to put an end to all this misery.
“Well, okay, then.” He moves toward his car, and I breathe a sigh of relief. But at the driver’s side he stops and turns, and walks all the way back toward me.
“You know you can talk to me, Markham.”
But he’s wrong. I don’t know that. I don’t know it at all. In fact, I don’t know anything. I close my eyes to stop the tears from spilling over. It’s all so dumb. None of it matters anymore. I don’t want or need any help from Ethan Andersson.
The sound of a bike engine revving, picking up speed, rounding the bend, fills the air. And the sight of Max Gordon follows.
Max, like some crazy derelict, zipping in through the far side of the parking lot, toward us.
LATE FEBRUARY
TENTH GRADE
“Come on, Wingfield. Follow me.” Max has been calling me this—Wingfield—ever since we read The Glass Menagerie.
It’s smart and sounds like a name on a sports jersey, so I adore it.
It’s freezing out, and Max is clearly insane for taking us down to the water, which shouldn’t surprise me; it’s basically what I’ve been told about him from anyone who knows him in our grade. “Max Gordon is crazy.” “Max Gordon is an alcoholic.” “Max Gordon is a total dog.” All those things have proven untrue, but I still should have known better than to agree to get on the back of his dirt bike and go down to the shore on the cusp of night with him. Especially here, on this unlit beach in the middle of nowhere.
I shiver, and pull my coat tighter, rewrapping my scarf around my face to keep the wind from numbing my forehead. My hands are frozen. I stupidly forgot my gloves.
Max takes my hand. His fingers are warm. He only wears a sweatshirt, but doesn’t seem cold.
“Here, down this way,” he says. “There’s a path, I think. If I know where I am.” I stumble, and Max catches me. “Hold on, I’ll use a light.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and shines the harsh glare ahead of us, illuminating tangles of brambles and bare branches. “Guess it’s overgrown some since I was here last,” he adds.
He kicks away stuff with his boot, and sure enough, underfoot is a path, and soon everything opens up to soft sand and moonlit water. I stop and stare out, and he moves behind me, and wraps his arms around me, pulling me tight against him. My stomach drops. I’m pretty sure I’m about to make out with Max Gordon. Maybe