His arms slacken. “You look incredible.”
Oh. Right. It’s been a month since he’s seen me in anything other than black. I give him a shy smile. “Thank you.”
Cricket points at my coat. “Going somewhere?”
“Yeah, I was on my way out.”
“Meet me on the sidewalk first? Would your parents would mind?”
“They’re not home.”
“Okay. See you in a minute?”
I nod and hurry downstairs. “I’ll be back in an hour,” I tell Norah. “There’s something I have to do. Tonight.”
She mutes the television and raises an eyebrow in my direction. “Does this mysterious errand have to do with a certain guy?”
I’m not sure which one she means, but . . . either is correct. “Yeah.”
She studies me for several excruciating seconds. But then she un-mutes the television. “Just get back here before your parents do. I don’t wanna have to explain.”
Cricket is waiting at the bottom of my stairs. His willowy figure looks exquisite in the moonlight. Our gazes are fixed on each other as I walk down the twenty-one steps to my sidewalk. “I’m going back to school,” he says.
I nod at his bag. “I guessed as much.”
“I just wanted to say goodbye. Before I left.”
“Thank you.” I shake my head, flustered. “I mean . . . I’m glad. Not that you’re going. But that you found me before leaving.”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
We’re quiet for a minute. Once more, I smell the faintest trace of bar soap and sweet mechanical oil, and my insides nervously stir.
“So . . . which way?” He gestures in both directions down the sidewalk. “Where are you going?”
I point in the opposite direction from where he’ll go to catch his train. “That way. There’s, uh, some unfinished business I have to attend to.”
Cricket knows, from my hesitation, what I’m talking about. I’m afraid he’ll tell me not to go—or, worse, ask to escort me—but he only pauses. And then he says, “Okay.”
Trust.
“You’ll come home soon?” I ask.
The question makes him smile. “Promise you won’t forget me while I’m gone?”
I smile back. “I promise.”
And as I walk away, I realize that I have no idea how I’ll manage to stop thinking about him.
The dread doesn’t hit until I arrive at his apartment and see the familiar brown stucco walls and pink oleander bush. I glance up at Max’s apartment. The light is on and there’s movement behind the curtain. Doubt creeps in like a poisonous fog. Was it wrong of me to come here? Is it selfish for me to want to apologize if he doesn’t want to hear it?
I climb the dark stairwell that leads to his front door. I’m relieved when he opens it, and not Johnny, but my relief is shortlived. Max’s amber eyes glare at me, and the scent of cigarettes is strong. No spearmint tonight.
“I—I heard you were back.”
Max remains silent.