on the computer and eat frozen pizzas and—”
This is where I usually shut it down. Once, at school, a teacher asked, and I got this far before I started zippering everything closed. My mouth, all the feelings, the fear. Shutting down works because nobody pays attention, not really. For most people, Jake can be both hero and recluse because in that world nobody has to care except for me.
“Is it because he got shot?” she asks.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I say. “The other night I had to go pick him up because he was halfway to Sherrills Ford. That’s like twenty miles away, and he was walking. For no reason.”
I drop my head. Even now I can’t say it out loud. The only words anyone ever uses—crazy, sick, off—don’t capture what’s wrong with Jake.
Mallory leans closer to me. “Hey, he’s going to be fine.”
“I don’t think he is.”
As soon as I say it, I’m nervous. If Mallory has a reaction, she doesn’t show it. I can’t tell if she doesn’t know what to say or maybe she can’t believe I’d betray Jake, everybody’s hero, so easily.
“I’m really sorry,” she says, not looking up.
I thank her quietly. The awkwardness begins filling up the truck by the bucketful until the unmistakable sound of a shotgun discharging rings across the night, immediately followed by shattering glass and enthusiastic male catcalls.
All I can think is: thank God for Hickory, North Carolina.
Voices dart across the empty parking lot, around the buildings. The words are muddled nonsense.
I start my truck because who knows how many beers these guys finished before the firearms came out. Before I can put the truck in gear, Mallory says, “So I’m guessing that’s what your parents were arguing about.”
I let the truck idle, hoping for another shotgun blast. But nothing comes, so I nod my head. “Of course. Dad says: ‘Jake is tough. Jake’s a man. He just needs some time to get right.’”
“What does your mom think?”
“That cookies and cake will solve all the problems.”
“I’m sure she sees it.”
“I see it,” I say. “But what does it matter if nobody does anything about it?”
It sounds harsher than I intend, weeks and months of frustration coming at her like shards of glass. When her phone goes off, she stares at me for three rings before punching the button and lifting it to her ear. The one-sided conversation is loud and angry.
“Well, stop calling then . . . Why do you care? . . . Fine, you want to know? I’m with Thomas . . . Yes . . . Yeah, we’re making sweet, mad love, Will—what do you think? . . . Okay, I’m hanging up now.”
This time it’s Mallory who goes quiet. She stares at the notebook still in her lap. We could’ve been sitting there for a hundred years before she says, “All I’m saying is, maybe your parents have reasons for what they’re doing . . . or not doing.”
“Ho-ly shit. Sin, will you look at this?”
Wayne Lewis is standing in front of my truck, holding a shotgun and nodding to Sinclair Williams. I’ve known them both since kindergarten. Good friends, but the sort of guys who only know how to have fun that ends with the police showing up.
Wayne squints into the truck. “Oh man, Thomas. Did we just ruin your graduation hookup?”
Mallory opens the door and waves. When the light catches her face and Wayne sees her, he smiles. “Might need to reload this twelve gauge, Sin. This boy right here’s in need of protection, messing around with another man’s woman.”
I’m about to tell Wayne we’re leaving, when Mallory gets out of the truck and points at the shotgun. “Hey, can I get a go with that?”
Wayne looks more surprised than I do, and for the next ten minutes I couldn’t tell Mallory and Wayne the world was ending, let alone try to get either of them to disengage. Wayne is impressed and fascinated that a girl would want to stand on the back of his pickup and fire a shotgun at empty beer bottles. He shows her how to hold the gun against her shoulder, how to trace the bottles Sinclair throws across the parking lot. Her phone goes off inside the cab of my truck, but if she hears it, I can’t tell.
“All right, get ready for this,” Wayne says, motioning to Sinclair.
The bottle goes airborne, and she misses it completely, rubbing her shoulder and cursing from the kickback. Wayne still cups his hands