Ghost Town Page 0,119

her.

Back home that evening, the four of them sat down to dinner. It was a quiet kind of thing, a little awkward, as if none of them knew where to start. They were all bruised, cut, and exhausted, for one thing; for another, nobody really wanted to say what they were all thinking. Or to bring up Shane's dad at all.

Eve, of course, decided to go at it from the opposite direction completely. "I can't believe I went home to my parents'," she said, a little too brightly. "Ugh. Revolting. My mom made my room into a hoarder's paradise, you know, full of boxes of crap. She ought to be in some freaky reality show. The weirdest part about it? I didn't really expect anything else, somehow. I just figured she'd pitched out my stuff and was pretending I'd never even been there. I pretended that often enough." Eve played with her plate of spaghetti, but she wasn't really eating it. "I kept asking her where my dad was. She kept saying he was on his way home." Eve's father, Claire remembered, had been dead a year. No wonder she was playing with her food instead of eating. Eve swallowed a gulp of water. "I wonder if maybe I should call her, see if she's okay."

"We can go over there if you want," Michael offered. "I know you don't like going by yourself."

Eve gave him a grateful little smile. "You're awesome," she said. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"Sure."

Shane wasn't talking at all. He was eating, though; he'd already cleaned one plate of spaghetti and was working on his second one. She wanted to talk to him, but she knew he wouldn't want her bringing it up, not in front of the others. Shane didn't like to be vulnerable, not even with his friends. He knew they'd understand, but that wasn't the point. He just needed to be . . . stronger than everybody else.

Eve said, "At least you've got an appetite, Shane."

That fell into an awkward silence, because Shane didn't come back at her at all. He just kept eating. Claire twirled some noodles on her fork and said, "My mom called. Dad's getting surgery this weekend in Dallas. They said he needed some kind of valve transplant, but it all looks like it's going to be okay, really okay. I'm going to ask for permission to go up on Friday."

"You don't have to ask permission," Shane said then. "You can just go. The machine's dead. Just go." His voice sounded flat, and wrong.

They all looked at one another, the rest of them. "There'll be roadblocks," Michael finally said. "It's not that easy."

"Yeah, it never is, is it?" Shane threw down his fork, pushed back from the table, and took his stuff into the kitchen. Claire went after him, but as soon as she came in the door, he dumped his food in the trash and his plate in the sink and turned to go.

"Shane--"

He held up both hands, pushing her off without touching her. "Give me some room, okay? I need room." He left. She stood there, looking at his plate sitting in the sink, and felt her heart breaking again. Why wouldn't he talk to her? What had she done? It hurt; it really did. She felt like . . . like she was losing him again.

She was tired of losing him.

Claire walked back out to the table. Shane had already disappeared upstairs, and his door shut with a slam. Michael and Eve were looking down at their plates.

"Awkward," Eve finally said, but her heart wasn't in it.

Michael shook his head. "He lost his dad. It hurts."

"I know," Eve said sharply. "Remember? Not like I don't have the T-shirt for that one."

"Sorry. I just meant--"

"I know." Eve sighed, and took his hand. "I know. Sorry. I'm just a little . . . weird. I guess we all are."

"The truth is, he lost his dad a long time ago. Maybe when his sister died. Maybe when Frank . . . uh . . ." Claire didn't quite know how to say it.

Michael did. "Got turned."

"Yeah," she said. "I don't think he ever really faced it, though. Now it's right in his face. He can't really avoid it anymore. His dad's just . . . gone."

"That's not it," Shane said from the stairs. They all jumped, even Michael, whom Claire guessed hadn't heard him coming, either. Shane could be quiet when he wanted to. "It isn't that he's gone. My problem is that