“I don’t care if you have a stutter, just don’t go ever go quiet on me, Jimmy.”
“I’ll try not to, Miss Hughes.”
Thea bolted up, eyes wide. “Oh my God, James—what’s your middle name?”
“Michael.”
“Oh my God, James Michael Whelan, call me Thea or I’ll kill you.”
I laughed. “It’s against the rules.”
Thea settled back against my shoulder. “Fuck the rules.”
I grinned over her head. And fuck you too, Doris. I gave my ex-foster mother the mental middle finger. She’s exactly who I knew she’d be.
“You can call me Thea because I know you,” Thea said. “We know each other. We’re friends, remember?”
“I remember.”
She was right. We knew each other. She knew me better than anyone, because she knew how to let me be myself. She didn’t have to fear me going silent; I had a voice with her. Humor. The stutter was an afterthought.
We sat for a few long minutes, and then Thea’s slender body began to shake with sobs.
“It comes in waves,” she said. “Dr. Chen said to just let it flow when it does. Otherwise, it gets scarier and scarier to face all at once.”
It was against the rules, but I put my arm around her and held her tight to my chest. She burrowed into me. Fit perfectly against me. Her tears dampened my shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a mess.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I never liked this uniform anyway.”
She laughed around a sob. “You’ve held me like this before too. When I was scared and crying that night. You were the one who stopped him.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” she said, hunching tighter. “I can’t deal with him right now. But this feels good. You’re a good hugger, Jimmy.”
“I try.”
She took a deep, steadying inhale. “What about you? I can’t remember that we ever talked much about you on our walks.”
“Not for lack of trying. You ask a lot of questions.”
Her laugh was a little stronger this time, but she stayed curled against me.
“For real,” she said. “What about you? Do you have family near here?”
“No.”
“Where are they?”
“Don’t know.”
“How do you not know?”
I shrugged. “I never knew them. I’ve been a foster kid forever. My mother gave me up. The state told me she was a teenager and she told them my name. That’s all I know.”
“Then you were adopted?”
“No. Just bounced around between foster families.”
Thea sat up and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. Even splotchy red from crying, she was beautiful.
“For eighteen years?”
I nodded. “None of the families stuck. Some were bad. Real bad. The last especially.”
“And then…?”
“I aged out,” I said. “The stutter made finding work hard, but I got a job as an orderly in Richmond. Then that place shut down, and I got the job here.”
And then I met you, Thea Hughes.
Thea frowned, pondering all of this, then settled back against me. “So… where do you live?”
“I rent a place in Boones Mill. It’s about fifteen minutes from here.”
“Alone? Or do you have a roommate?” I felt her stiffen as if bracing herself. “Or… a girlfriend?”
“No girlfriend. I live alone.”
Thea melted against me. I held her tighter.
“Do you have a dog?” she asked. “A goldfish?”
“No pets allowed.”
She craned her neck up to look at me, her lips inches from mine. “But Jimmy…?”
I shifted under her questioning gaze. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I don’t need much, either.”
Thea frowned. “What about love?”
I frowned back. “What about it?”
“There had to have been someone. When you were a little boy…?”
“Grandpa Jack. My last foster mother’s dad. He was good to me. He died but… we had some good times.”
Thea stared, and I realized the entirety of my life’s story had taken minutes to tell.
Five minutes. I’ve been living a five-minute life.
“I don’t need pity, Thea,” I said, turning away from her incredulous look. “It is what it is.”
Her hand touched my fingers, her soft skin warm in the warmer air, and then slid into mine—palm to palm—and our fingers laced together. Thea settled back against my chest, curving into me again because she belonged there and we both knew it.
“I don’t feel sorry for you, Jimmy,” she said. “I feel sorry for all the people who had a chance to really know you but didn’t. They blew it. They fucked up. I’m proud of myself that I’m not like them.”
I stared over her head. No one had ever said anything like that to me. Her words sank some place