“I appreciate it. Thanks.” I’m a total chickenshit in real life.

“Brandon?” says Mom.

“Yep.”

“Are you all right, sweetie? You sound‌—‌far away.”

“I am far away.”

“I know this is such a‌…‌confusing time for you, but‌—‌”

You have no idea. “I’m great, Mom. Don’t worry, okay?” She sounds so sad. “I’ll be home before you know it.”

“Maybe you’ll come to the St. Matt’s Funfair on the Fourth?”

“‌…‌Sure.” No. No.

“You’re a good kid, Brandon,” Dad says.

I’m not stupid. I hear how he says it: like a command, not a compliment. But his words work on me, independent of the tone, and I want it all back again. I want to be the good kid. I want to be the kid who never made them worry, the one who was safe in his bed while Nat was off at Rocky Horror throwing toast and making out with A.J. Brody. I want to believe what they believe, to feel Mom’s smiling eyes on me while I strum “Be Not Afraid” at the Folk Mass, to ask Dad for advice when he stops by my room to say goodnight. Except now my problem is I’m afraid I’m going to break my boyfriend’s heart. And even if I got brave enough to ask, I don’t think he’d sit down on my bed and ruffle my hair. He’d just turn off the light and walk away.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Our clothes tumble together in a dented old dryer at the Compass Creek Campground laundry room. Abel and I sit on molded plastic seats the color of pea soup and watch. I spot my Castaway Planet shirt and keep my eyes on that, watching it get tossed and battered and tossed again.

Nothing’s changed.

I tell myself that, over and over. Nothing’s changed. I’m here in a laundry room doing a quick load of darks with my boyfriend, and then we’re going to take a walk in the woods and play WordWhap with Bec and have late-night cherry Pop-Tarts in bed like we’ve done every night since Long Beach. I tell myself that, and then Michelle Arnott’s face pops up and I start breathing faster, bracing myself for all the other bad things to come back. It’s like that scene in the cave when Cadmus lit a match and the crystal spiders all started crawling out of secret dark places, hissing closer and closer.

I joggle Plastic Sim in my hand, lose myself in the machine’s warm mechanical hum. I want to disappear into Sim again. I want the simple ease of clean robot fantasies that fade out with kissing and don’t come with a crapload of complications.

“Brandon,” Abel says. “You sneaky bitch.”

“What?”

“You’re having a relapse.”

“Huh?”

“It all makes sense!” He waggles a finger at me like I’m a Scooby-Doo villain. “You were like a billion miles away at the go-kart track.”

“Sorry.”

“And I made you my world-famous kitchen-sink nachos and you completely failed to rhapsodize.”

“World-famous?”

“Well. Susannah likes them.”

I force a shrug. “Too spicy.”

“Surprise surprise.”

Five seats over, some grizzly guy in camo pants is chomping a chalupa and waiting for his afghan to dry. He gave us this look when we walked in. I think back to three or four years ago, when Dad’s remote stopped at Project Runway for five seconds. “What they do is their business,” he’d grumbled. “But why are they all so loud about it?”

“I’m okay,” I lie. “No relapse.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“What’d what’s-her-face say to you at the hotel? Just tell me.”

“I don’t want to.” I slouch down in my seat. “I just want to forget her.”

He cracks into a two-pack of snack cakes. “It’s almost kind of funny. If you think about it. Cupcake?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“Right! I know.”

“Like, have you ever seen Dumbo?”

“Uh‌…‌yeah. Ages ago.”

“Remember when he thought he could fly because he was holding the magic feather, and then one day he loses the feather and‌—‌what happens?”

“He panics.”

“You would remember that. He flies anyway, dumbass.”

“Right. The gritty realism of Disney.”

“Don’t be cynical. It’s ugly on you.” He pokes my belly button. I poke him back and then he’s tickling my ribs, swooping in to nibble a kiss on my neck.

“Abel‌—‌” I murmur.

“What?”

“That guy’s giving us looks.”

“So? He’s probably jealous.”

“He looks like a gun nut or something.”

“Oh, they’re all secretly closeted. Haven’t you heard?” He studies the guy’s profile and leans close to me, dropping his voice to a husky whisper. “Twenty years may have passed, but still he longs for Joe, his truck-driving partner with the sexy sideburns and the shapely‌—‌”

I smack him. “Sto-op.”

“He still remembers that fateful night‌…‌hauling a truckload of tennis balls through Tuscaloosa‌…‌”

“Oh my God.”

“The tape deck was playing‌—‌help me, Bran.”

I roll my eyes. “Journey’s Greatest Hits.”

“Brilliant.” He grins and slides a hand up my thigh. I feel my muscles loosen a little. “Joe’s face in the silvery moonlight had never looked so enticing‌…‌they sang ‘Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ together, their voices entwining in unexpected harmony.”

“They pulled over at a rest stop.”

“Yes. Hot.” He nests his chin on my shoulder. “For twenty stolen minutes, under the stars in a dense patch of forest, they‌—‌”

“Twenty minutes?”

“No?”

I’m grinning now. “You’re, ah, selling their passion short.”

“You’re right. For shame.” He nips my ear. “For forty-five stolen minutes, they unlocked the secrets of each other‌…‌their cares melting away as they whispered‌—‌”

“Take it somewhere else.”

I jump. Camo Pants is right in front of us. He’s chewing on a toothpick and standing like the football players at school did before a big game: fists on waist, legs planted far apart. I go cold.

Abel smiles, still in fic-land. “Sorry. Did you say something?”

“Yep. I said, take it somewhere else.”

Abel flutters his lashes. “Like where?”

“Anywhere I don’t have to see it.”

Shut up. Please shut up, I message Abel, thinking of the call to my parents: “I’m so sorry. Your son was shot to death in a campground laundry room.” But the guy’s done for now. He clomps off to the soda machine, shooting a glare over his shoulder.

Abel snorts and swallows a giggle. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“What a goon.” Abel elbows me.

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey.”

“What.”

“I want to take you on a date,” he says. “Like a cheesy old-school restaurant date.”

My heart’s still hammering. “When?”

“When we’re back on the road, like in Nebraska or Iowa. Some weirdo small town where we’ll never ever be again. We’ll find someplace good.” He hooks his fingers through mine. “Say yes.”

“Okay‌…‌”

“How come you always do that?” he grins.

“Do what?”

“Squeeze my hand twice? It’s cute.”

“Oh‌…‌” Camo Pants bangs out of the laundry room, the rusty bells slapping the glass door. “It’s dumb.”

“There’s a story? Tell me!”

I keep my eyes on the door. He’ll come back any minute with a rifle, the same battered .223 Remington he just used to shoot up coyotes in the Utah backwoods. “Mom used to do that when I was a kid,” I tell Abel. “Sort of a tradition. She said it was like‌—‌” Footsteps scuffle, metal rattles outside.

“Like what?”

It’s just an old lady with a shopping cart. “‌…‌It was our secret code for ‘I love you.’ That way we could say it any time, even when we couldn’t talk. Like in the middle of church or whatever.”

“That’s intensely sweet.”

“Yeah.”

“A good kind of secret.”

You can’t keep secrets from God, guys. He knows everything.

“Bran?”

He sees everything.

“You okay? What’s wrong?”

I stab my nails into my palm. The Father Mike stuff won’t come back.