everything about how he felt, and sounded, how it smelled. The one who would have made me spill every lurid detail.
The toilet flushes down the hall.
“You ready?” Max says, walking in and holding out a hand to me.
“Ready for what?”
“Come on, I’ll show you. The Kawasaki. My other shiny, new baby that’s going to take me all the way to California.”
He picks me up and tosses me up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, spanking my butt and sending me into a fit of still-tipsy giggles, even as I fight the rush of alcohol that lurches up from my stomach into my throat.
* * *
When he puts me down, we’re in the garage and I’m standing in front of a large, gleaming motorcycle, black and cobalt blue, way sturdier and more intimidating than the beaten-up dirt bike he rides to and from school.
“It’s the same exact color as a Blue Morpho butterfly!” I say, sounding a little more excited than I should.
“That’s what we’ll call her,” he proclaims proudly. “Blue Morpho. All good bikes have a name.” He sits on her and pats the seat behind him. “Hop on. See how she feels. Soon she’ll have the power to take me from New York to California in less than a week.”
“Us,” I say, awkwardly straddling the seat. It’s wider than the dirt bike’s, and harder for me to get comfortable on.
He twists around to look at me. “Are you serious?”
And maybe it’s the beer talking, or that I’m taking Blue Morpho as some sort of big, significant sign, but I meet his gaze and say, “Yes. Completely serious. I have the money, Max. I mean, I think I do. Could. And if I do, you can have it.” I lean my cheek to his back, wrapping my arms around his waist, pretending we’re in motion. I’m safe here with him. I’m happy. He is everything I’ve waited for. “I want you to have it, Max. All of it. Whatever you need to fix her up. Plus, gas and the other stuff. I want to go to California with you.”
He shakes me off and climbs off the bike, stands facing me, hands gripped to my shoulders. His eyes are alive with possibility.
“Are you sure, Jailbait? Really?”
I nod. “Yes. I think so. If the money is still there, it’s yours.”
LATE MAY
TENTH GRADE
If I’m taking Blue Morpho as a sign, I should also take it as a sign that the first Glasswing is dead when I walk in my room. But I don’t. It crushes me, but I read nothing into it, just stare at its lifeless body at the bottom of the habitat.
I don’t have time for that right now. I have a small window of opportunity. Mom’s not home, and the note on the counter says: At dinner with Nana. Call if you want us to bring you something. Plus, I’m still slightly buzzed, which emboldens me. I lift the lifeless creature from the habitat and hold it in my palm.
With my eyes closed, it’s weightless. I can’t even tell that it’s there.
* * *
It’s been months since I’ve been in Mom’s room, months since I’ve done anything but stand wistfully at her door watching her sleep, or cry, or zone out, or talk to people who aren’t there. Like everything else in my life lately, the room feels only vaguely familiar, a set design from some play I once saw.
I sit on the bed, trying to rationalize what I’m about to do. It’s not all that hard, actually. If Dad gave a crap about me, I tell myself, he would have come home months ago. And if my mother cared, she’d snap out of it, pull her shit together. Try harder. Try at all.
The duvet cover is new, expensive-looking cream-colored silk with brown and gold embroidered flowers. I run my hand across it. Leave it to my mother to dine out and shop between crying jags. And this—it feels strangely fussy and old-ladyish. Not like my mother at all. Maybe Nana picked it out. I prefer the old, loud green-and-violet paisley one that, despite a trip or two to the dry cleaners, had still smelled faintly of my father.
I lie back and try to recall the scent, a mix of his cucumber soap and his spicy, musky aftershave, remembering how the smell would engulf me when I’d hide under their comforter at bedtime, hoping to stay snuggled a few minutes more.
Tears well in my eyes. But there’s no time