Page 6 of Genesis
“No, I mean, why were you sitting on the roof?”
He lifts a brow and his chin at the same time. “Thinking,” he says.
“About?”
He studies me for a moment, and then he removes his hands from his pockets and reaches down to pick up a rock. He chunks it at one of the windows, and again the glass meets the ground.
“Why are you out here?” he asks, clearly not going to tell me what he was thinking about on the roof of his house. He must have gotten down pretty quickly to catch up to me. Or maybe I’m not as fast a runner as I think I am.
“I needed to get out of the house.” I pick up another piece of granite and break a third window.
“Why is that?” he asks.
I shrug. “Arguing with my mom.”
“About?”
“You sure are nosy,” I say.
He smirks. “Curious.”
I roll my eyes. “Curiosity killed the cat. Don’t you know that?”
He laughs and my knees get weak, my stomach tightens, and I suddenly feel light-headed.
“I’m not going to die,” he says.
“We all die,” I reply.
He shakes his head and lifts another rock. “Not me. I’m going to live forever.” He throws it toward the windows.
“That’s impossible, dummy.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” he says. “Don’t you want to live forever?”
I shrug, knowing all too well what death looks like to believe anyone could outrun it.
He stops and looks at me peculiarly.
I pick up a rock and throw it with everything inside of me. My mom’s dying and I’m here throwing rocks at windows with some boy I don’t even know.
“Hey!” someone yells. We both look back at the person with a flashlight.
“Shit,” Danny says. “Come on.” He grabs my hand and we take off running.
“Hey! Come back here,” the man yells after us, but Danny makes us go lightning speed. I can hardly keep up. He grips my hand like a kid afraid to lose their balloon. We exit the alleyway and round the corner, heading back toward our houses.
My legs hurt from running so fast, and my arm burns from being pulled. Danny looks behind us as we slow down. He drops my hand, and that’s when I realize that was the first time I’ve ever held a boy’s hand.
He looks at me and smiles. “That’s always so fun.”
“What?” I ask, out of breath.
“Doing something bad and not getting caught,” he replies like it’s the simplest thing.
I make a face of confusion. “You like doing bad things?”
“Don’t you?” he asks. “You were the one busting windows first.”
