Part 30 (1/2)

Mom takes his plate, ducks her head to avoid the bikes, and washes it in the sink. Her eyes are red.

”When do we go to the farm?” Pete asks.

”As soon as we get a car,” she tells him, putting the plate to drain in the rack above the sink.

He nods. At least he doesn't smell so bad now. There's still a funk to him, though. You'd have to take all the layers of his skin off to get rid of it. He may never smell okay, let alone good.

Not that it will matter for much longer.

”Got a car,” Dad announces. ”I'll be back in half an hour. Be downstairs and ready. I'll call when I'm close.”

”Good,” Mom says. ”Hurry.”

Light is streaming in through the windows. I go into my bedroom and take my pill.

BEFORE.

Sometimes I don't think Zach felt the same way about me that I felt about him. Okay, not sometimes, often. Often I felt like that. We didn't have that long together. That one winter, a little bit of spring. Then I was away for the summer. Then early in the fall he was dead.

He didn't try to contact me once during the summer. Admittedly that was hard. No internet, no phone. I gave him an address for letters-the gas station. But who writes letters anymore?

I wrote him exactly one: Dear Zach, I run every day. I'm not sure how many miles. It's not like we have a real track or anything. I do the dynamic stretching. Knees to my face and that. It's not too hard. I think I'm faster.

See you in the fall.

Micah I didn't send him kisses or love or tell him I missed him. But I did.

That was the longest summer of my life. I wish I could have been a wolf the whole three months. Wolf time was golden. Human time stretched out long and aching and not a word from Zach.

I wish we'd had longer.

I can measure our time together in minutes. Sometimes a week-two even-would go by without seeing him. Glimpses at school, his scent. Nothing real.

He didn't miss me the way I missed him.

He didn't love me the way I loved him.

There was nothing constant about his heart. Not like mine.

LIE NUMBER NINE.

I do have a brother.

I did have a brother.

If only I'd made Jordan up.

He died.

I was twelve. He was ten. It was an accident.

We don't talk about it.

I can't think about it.

AFTER.

It takes Dad considerably longer than half an hour to show up. He's borrowed a car from one of his journalist friends. It's battered and has a top speed of about forty miles. Dad drives. Mom sits beside him. I'm in back with the white boy. I'm along because my parents want me to keep an eye on him. I said no, but Mom and Dad insisted, and as soon as they did the white boy declared that he wouldn't leave without me.

Here I am in a car so small I can hear my parents breathing in the front seat. The windows are down despite the chill because the boy's still a bit too rank. No one's talking. The boy's peering out the window. He's been stuck that way since we left the city and there started to be real countryside.

He's definitely not playing with a full deck.

The farther we are from the city the more fall announces itself. Trees on the side of the highway have turned to flame-gold, red, purple as far as I can see. In the city, trees are still mostly green and lush. Fall's come late. I'm glad. I haven't been looking forward to my first winter without Zach.

”Cows!” the boy announces. ”And another one! And another! And another! Five cows!”

At least he can count.

”Seven cows!”

This is going to be the most fun drive ever. Slow and cold with the cow-counting savant to entertain us. Kill me now.

”Eleven cows! Two horses!”

Please don't let him count and name every animal we pa.s.s.

”You've never seen a cow before?” Dad says.

”No,” the boy replies.

Mom turns from the front seat to look at him. ”You have been outside the city before?”

The boy doesn't move from staring out the window. ”Don't think so,” he says. ”Never been in a car before.”

That can't be true. ”What about a bus?” I ask.

”Nope.”

”What about the subway?”

”Yeah,” he says. ”Used to sleep there. Don't see cows or horses out subway windows.”

”No,” I say.

”I like cows,” he says.

”There are cows on the farm. Four of them.”

He turns to look at me, making sure I'm telling the truth. ”Really?”