“I’m fine.”

  “I don’t want to make you late.”

  “All I’ve got planned is my axe-murdering spree this afternoon.”

  I was going to sigh, just for emphasis, but he looked so pleased with himself, almost happy, that I let him have the moment.

  He smiled when we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was like seeing sunrise when you’ve only ever lived at night. It wasn’t a perfect smile; the mutilated side of his face must have had some nerve damage, because the smile was clipped on that side. The effect was even better, somehow. Like a perpetual smirk. Like he had a secret he might tell me one day.

  “Never?” I asked.

  “Never ever,” he breathed, staring out at the bridge, the bay, the city. He laughed. “Holy shit, this is so cool.”

  And then we crashed through a wall of fog, and it was just the two of us, and he was still smiling.

  We drove to Muir Woods, another twenty minutes past the north end of the bridge. California hills with low, scrubby growth gave way to the redwoods. They smelled like what they were; I thought of balsam and sap and tar.

  Cathedral Grove was where I wanted to take him: the cluster of ancient redwoods where men and women moved like church mice. To get there, we had to walk, and people saw us. People pointed at him. People talked—quietly, but they still talked.

  I watched him as we walked toward the grove. He looked at the redwoods, of course. But he also looked at the creek, at the same little bend under a bridge that had drawn my eye the first time I came because it caught sunlight like a mirror. And he looked at the ferns. Once, he leaned down to rub a frond between his fingers, and something—a vole, maybe—darted away, rustling the whole plant. He yelped and stumbled back, grabbing my shirt, his shoulder in my chest.

  We both laughed.

  He let go of my shirt, but his arm stayed around my waist.

  He kept saying all the things he was supposed to say. Cool. Wow. Awesome. Tight. Tough. Sick.

  When we got to the grove, we both fell silent. Reverence is a strange thing; it begins as stillness, but it grows in the heart. In that place, where the only noise was the soft click of shoes on the boardwalks, I could feel what I had felt the first time I ever came to these woods: the slow thud of my heart, the air on my skin, the taste of loam and dust from the sequoias’ bark. And a heat in me that had nothing to do with the fire I carried.

  He pulled my arm around his shoulder and leaned into me like he was falling. He kept looking up, looking around, shaking his head.

  “Never?” I whispered.

  He shook his head harder and whispered. “Never ever.”

  4 | JIM

  “I’m not saying we shouldn’t go,” I said. “I’m saying I’m worried you’re losing focus.”

  Emmett lay on the rec room sofa, tossing a tiny foam basketball against the wall.

  “I never leave.”

  “I took you out twice last week.”

  He fumbled the catch, recovered by clasping the ball to his chest. He glanced over at me.

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “Like a date,” he said with that clipped smile.

  “I’ve got enough trouble with dates,” I said, mostly to myself. “I don’t need any more.”

  “Trouble?” He propped himself on an elbow.

  “None of your business.”

  “It helps to talk.”

  I gave him the stink eye.

  “You never told me about your dates.”

  “I didn’t tell you because it’s not appropriate.”

  “I’m a big boy, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Drop it.”

  “I’ve got hair on my balls.”

  “Ok, now drop it.”

  “I even had the talk,” he said, his dark eyes huge. “You stick the thing in the other thing and then it explodes.”

  “The reason I said maybe we shouldn’t leave the facility today—”

  “You did fuck him, right?”

  My face felt like it was on fire, but I kept going. “—is because it seems like you’re escaping by inches. You got a taste for freedom, and now you want to leave all the time. And I like spending time with you—”

  “Taking me out.”

  “Spending time with you. But that means you’re not here, working on getting better.”

  Emmett studied me for a minute, tossing the ball, the foam smacking lightly against the drywall.

  “One for one.”

  “What?”

  “One answer for one answer.”

  “I didn’t ask you a question.”

  “Well?” he asked, tossing the ball.

  I shot out of my seat and caught it. “Emmett, this is serious. I want you to get better. I want you to get out of this place. Even though it’s hard, you’ve got to stick it out and do what you need to do.”

  He just waited, fingers splayed to catch the ball.

  Finally, I dropped it, and his hand closed around it. I shook my head, trying to say no, but instead I said, “Fine. One for one.”

  “How many times have you guys fucked?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Ok, ok. How about—” His face screwed up in thought. “How serious is it?”

  How serious can it be, I wanted to say, when he doesn’t want to know my name, doesn’t want to talk, just wants me bent over a park bench five minutes after we hooked up.

  “Not serious.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “Is it your beard?”

  “Guys like my beard.”

  He stuck out his tongue. “It’s not your hair, because you finally got it cut. Is it because you’re a teacher? I thought that was, like, a fetish. I thought gay guys would be all over you, wanting you to spank them and tell them they’re naughty.”

  “Ok,” I said, covering my face, feeling the heat of the flush. “I can never visit you again.”

  “Is it your personality? You’re kind of a B-/C+. Definitely ish territory.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But you’re pretty, so you don’t need a personality.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is it—”

  “My turn: what are you going to do to make sure you get out of here soon?”

  He chewed the mutilated corner of his mouth. He ran the back of his hand across his forehead like he was checking for a fever. “Please take me somewhere tonight.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Tomorrow. Just—please? Tonight? The doctors will sign off, and we can go to that Greek place we saw last time.”

  “Swear?”

  “I swear.” He crossed his heart and held out his pinkie finger, hooking it with mine. “I’ll start taking it seriously tomorrow. I’ll get out of here as soon as I can. I’ll tell them whatever they want to hear.”

  “Good.”

  “Please?”

  I could feel the ground giving out under me.

  He smiled, that huge smile clipped on one side where the scars were too deep.

  “Dinner,” I said.

  He let out a whoop.

  “Just dinner.”

  He let out another whoop, stretching like a cat.

  “And we’re coming straight back.”

  Rolling off the couch, he set himself like a sprinter. Then, tossing a grin over his shoulder, he said, “Race you to the car.”

  5 | EMMETT

  I kept an eye out as we drove slowly through the parking lot. Slow enough that people saw me. People pointed. People talked. People laughed.

  “Ignore them,” Jim said, touching my elbow.

  I was ignoring them; I was too focused on something else.

  Escape.

  I had picked the Greek place because Jim had mentioned it, because he looked too thin, because my parents had given me a credit card and thought they were being strict when they put the monthly limit at a thousand dollars. Back home, I probably would have—as Vie might have said—pitched a fit. Here, I didn’t have anywhere to spend it. Or anyone to spend it on. Except Jim.

  But I had also picked it because it was one of the anchors of a large outdoor shopping mall, the kind with water fountains for kids—dry because of the drought—and water stations for dogs—still running.

  Jim drove the Impala, which now made a high-pitched squeaking sound, like a dog going crazy with a chew toy.

  “I’m going to get it fixed.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Just waiting for the next paycheck.”

  I blew out a long breath and let my head fall against the window. The glass was cool when everywhere else I felt like I was sunburned.

  “Right,” I said.

  And for some reason that made him laugh.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged, smiled. “It’s nice to know you’re still a kid sometimes.”

  I ran a hand through my hair and gave him my best fuck-me eyes, pulled my lower lip between my teeth, and just breathed. I knew how to do it right, every inch of me relaxed and tight by turns. I remembered what it had done to Vie every time. Every single time.

  His pupils widened, and he turned to look ahead. He rolled his shoulders once, as though throwing off something, and then he swore and slammed on the brakes. We missed the Subaru ahead of us by an inch.

  I laughed. I wanted him to ask me why I was laughing so I could say something shitty about being a kid, but he just drummed his thumbs on the wheel and tried to pretend he didn’t have a boner.

  When we got out of the car, I started walking.

  “The Greek place is that way.”

  I kept walking.

  Jogging, Jim caught up and said, “The Greek place is that way.”

  “I want to look around.”

  “That wasn’t the deal.”

  I shrugged. “We’re here now. I want to look around.”

  “Emmett, that wasn’t the deal.”

  “Oh, teacher voice.”

  “Don’t mess around. We talked about this. We had an agreement.”

  “Big, bad teacher voice.” My eyebrows shot up as I spotted a pretzel cart. “What are you going to do if I’m bad?”

  “Emmett.”

  “Say please.”

  “Please.”

  I hemmed and kept walking. “Nah.”

  “Stop it,” he said, grabbing my arm and spinning me around.

  That wasn’t his teacher voice. That was Jim. Raw. Angry. Hearing him lose control like that—no, fuck, making him lose control like that—was better than heroin, better than anything except maybe Vie.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, but when I took another step, he locked my arm at the wrist and forced me up against one of the walls. People drifted past us, but they were too busy focusing on my face, on the crazy fuck-up of scars, to notice a little thing like assault.

  “Get the fuck off me,” I said, but low. For the first time in months, I felt something tumbling in my chest right where my heart should have been.

  “I’ve really tried to be cool about this.”

  “Cool? How fucking old are you? Why don’t you just say groovy? Why don’t you say you’ve been fucking radical?”

  “What is going on? I thought we were having a nice time.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Emmett—”

  “Fuck. Off.”

  His pupils were blown again, but not with lust this time. Embers stirred in the golden-blond wave of hair. Heat poured off him; November, and I was sweating.

  “Fine,” he finally said. “Let’s go back to the facility.”

  “Fine.”

  But neither of us moved.

  “Jesus, Emmett. Just say you’re sorry and we can go have dinner. We can still have a nice night.”

  “You’re a fucking tool,” I said. “And you’re hurting me.”

  He was having a hard time controlling his breathing. His hair was almost copper colored now.

  “You’re burning me,” I whispered.

  He let go like he was the one being burned. I hadn’t been lying; a red imprint in the shape of his hand marked hand and wrist.

  “Oh my God. Emmett, I—oh my God. I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry, I’m really sorry—”

  “Don’t touch me,” I said, twisting away.

  “Let me see.”

  But I twisted away again, and this time, he didn’t follow.

  “Come on, we need to get that looked at, and—”

  “I want to put some cold water on it.”

  “Ok, um, bathrooms are—”

  I slid along the wall, watching him. “No. I don’t want you near me.”

  “Emmett—”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “Please, I—”

  “Just give me five fucking minutes, ok? You can watch the hallway the whole time.”

  When he nodded, I slipped down the hallway that led to the bathrooms. I’d picked this place for a reason: the hallway ran all the way through the shopping mall and exited in the food court on the other side. Jim could stand there all night, waiting for me to come out, and he’d never see me again.

  I told myself all the reasons I was a shit. He was the only one who had ever come to see me. He was the only one who had ever cared about me. Tonight, he’d called me a kid, and I’d paid him back by making him feel like a monster. I pushed his buttons. I made fun of him. I treated him like dirt. And now, tonight, I was leaving him on the hook while I got the hell out of here. A thousand dollars wasn’t a lot, but it could get me somewhere else. For a little while.

  I didn’t look back, but I could feel him behind me, like a fire on a hill, and the whole world dark.

  6 | JIM

  I had hurt him.

  No, worse: I had burned him.

  I stood at the end of the hallway that led to the bathrooms, shoved my hands in my pockets, and then yanked them out again; smoke wisped up. The smell of burnt cotton mixed with butter and cinnamon; a high-powered fan was spreading the aroma from the pretzel stand. I dropped onto a planter, and cold wormed up from the terracotta.

  Everything had been going so well. Not just tonight; for a while. Emmett was getting better. And I was . . . I was stable. At the very least, I wasn’t getting any worse. The nights were cold, but once I rolled up the windows and snuggled into the sleeping bag, I stayed pretty toasty in the Impala’s back seat. Not that I had to worry about body temperature. And I picked up odd jobs. Task apps, mostly. Just enough to eat, put gas in the Impala, move the car night to night. Enough that I could keep seeing Emmett. A day here. A day there. I hadn’t meant to stay; I was going to pop in, see him, and move on. And then we’d sat across from each other at a wobbly table in the canteen. He’d looked at me from a mile away. He was just a kid. He’d seen the same things I’d seen. Worse, maybe; I didn’t know everything he’d been through.

  Just like that, I found myself talking to him about all of it, the parts we’d shared, the parts we hadn’t. And having someone to talk to made it easier.

  So I stayed. One night, I told myself. And one night turned into many.

  Everything had been going great until I hurt him.

  Burned him.

  He wasn’t going to forgive me; he’d been hurt too many times by too many people, and now he was just looking for a reason to—

  He’d been gone too long.

  I walked down the hall. Briskly. It was a long hall, and I saw it went on past the bathrooms, extending toward another part of the mall. Part of me thought I already knew what he’d done. Part of me hoped I was jumping to conclusions.

  “Emmett?” I stalked the length of the bathroom, once, back again. “Emmett?” I went down the row of stalls again, hammering on the doors. “Emmett?”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” an old voice called back.

  A guy with a unibrow stared at me over the urinal divider.

  At the sink a potbellied guy in a pelican-print shirt was drying his hands. “Buddy, is it your kid? What’s his name? Emmon? Hold on, we’ll find him. Emmon!”

  I ran past him, back into the hallway, following it away from the bathroom, away from where I’d been waiting. Waiting like a chump. A great big trusting chump. Thinking that because we’d shared things with each other—things I hadn’t told anyone, couldn’t tell anyone—that he wouldn’t lie to me. Thinking that because he knew how much I cared for him, he’d care enough back that he wouldn’t do something like this. You should have known better, I told myself as I jogged. You know kids, so you should have known better.

  The hallway opened onto the food court. The sky had already darkened; bright lights illuminated kiosks selling hair extensions and ear piercings and sunglasses; plate glass storefronts displayed scarves and jackets, shirts and pants, a cowl neck sweater. In one window, someone had soaped GOING GOING GONE! Like fuck, I thought. He’s not getting away this easily.

  I scanned one direction, then the other. Plenty of people. Lots of people. He’d been smart; he’d picked this place on purpose. He’d played me.

  Heat tingled along my palms, in the soles of my feet. I smelled campfire smoke.

  Calm, calm.

  Not here.

  After a few more deep breaths, I managed to get my phone out of my pocket. I pulled up a map. The shopping mall was only a few blocks from the ocean. He wouldn’t run west, not unless he was planning on swimming to Hawaii. He wouldn’t run north; the coast cut in too sharply. South, maybe. But the Pacific Coast Highway was only half a mile east. Why not hit the PCH and see if some granola driver would give him a lift? Even with the scars—maybe especially with the scars—he was pretty enough that he could get a ride.

  I headed east, past a Gap, past a Tommy Hilfiger, past a bulk tea discounter and a place that only sold gummy worms, but a million flavors of them, past an RC Cola machine with a washed-out SORRY sign taped to the front.

  Then I hit the end of the shopping mall. A chain-link fence separated the mall’s neat cement walkways from a field of California scrub. Even at night, there was nowhere to hide; acres of ground with nothing big enough to hide him. And he wasn’t there.

 

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