“I don’t. She already said everything she needed to say.”
“If you believe that, you obviously don’t know Millie. More to the point, though, you two used to be inseparable. You were best friends. I’m not saying your relationship isn’t going to change, but it’d be a shame to throw it all away because you can’t get over a little embarrassment at having your pride hurt.”
Keme scraped his spoon around his now-miraculously empty ice cream dish. “This?” he said. “You acting like an adult? It’s so gross.”
“Thank you.”
He made a disgusted sound, tossed his spoon in the paper cup, and shoved it away. He stared out the window. He looked like every teenage boy in every teenage movie who is considering doing something he absolutely did not want to do.
“Being vulnerable is a two-way street,” I said into that gloomy, hormone-filled silence. “Yeah, it was very brave of you to tell her how you feel. But it takes a lot of bravery to listen, too. To sit there. To open yourself up to the other person when they need to tell you something. Because it means leaving yourself unguarded. And it means you can get hurt.”
Keme shook his head again, but it was softer this time, more tired than anything else.
“No one can blame you for feeling the way you do,” I said. “You have every right to be hurt, to be angry. The world isn’t a fair place, and it’s been particularly unfair to you.” I tried to think of the best way to say it, but I was tired and drained and possibly concussed, so I said, “But you don’t have to feel that way forever. Not if you don’t want to.”
Something spread across his face—the faintest ripple of whatever was moving deep below those still waters. “She doesn’t need me anymore. She has Louis.”
“No, Keme. She doesn’t need you. That’s a good thing, actually, because not a lot of healthy relationships are built on need. But she wants you. Wants you in her life, and maybe a lotmore. And I think you want her in your life, too. But it means being brave again.”
He sat motionless. And the boy on the other side of the glass, that thinned-out reflection, he didn’t move either. When Keme spoke, the words were so quiet I could barely pick them up over the buzz of the fluorescents. “I don’t want to be brave anymore.”
And what I heard wasI don’t want to get hurt anymore.
“Everybody feels that way sometimes,” I said. “That’s why we have friends. People who love us. Who will help us until we can be brave again.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t nod. He stared out the window some more, and he looked as tired as an eighteen-year-old boy can be.
“Keme,” I said. “Please come home.”
Chapter 18
I texted everyone to let them know Keme was okay. Fox arrived not long after. They got out of the van as Keme and I exited the Cold Stone, and then they stood there, wringing their hands as Keme and I approached. When we reached the van, Fox darted forward to grab Keme in a hug. Almost as quickly as it began, Fox released the boy, and words spilled out of them.
“You won’t believe the merry chase I’ve had. An aspiring bicycle thief! And me, the town darling, a pillar of civic-mindedness, practically a hero. Here we go, everyone in the van. Lovely to see you again, my boy. You look as handsome as a young James Dean. And you, Dashiell—”
“No,” I said.
“—look like a young Demi Moore.”
I sighed.
“In that movie,” Fox clarified, “when she does all the push-ups. Although perhaps notthatyoung.”
“Please get in the van,” I told Keme, “so we can get this over with.”
I thought maybe he’d be too tired to smile, or too numb. But it was there. A weary shadow curving his lips, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t even snap at me, shove me, or pull my hair when I helped him into the back of the van.
Then Fox and I stood there. Fox was trembling: top hat quivering, monocle about to tumble, Victorian-waif-style fingerless gloves thrumming against their thighs.
“He’s okay,” I said. “He’ll be okay.”
Fox gave a jerky nod. For a moment, I was sure they were going to cry, but they pulled themselves together, patted me onthe shoulder, and, with false cheer and a terrible English accent, called out, “Tally-ho!”
They did it about three more times on the drive home. And then, when we stopped at a red light, they yanked a sequined handkerchief out of one pocket, impresario-style, and wiped their eyes and shook with a single, violent, silent sob. I rubbed their back and glanced to see if Keme had noticed. I was pretty sure he hadn’t, mostly because the only part of him I could see were his legs; the rest of him was hidden by the tennis-skirt mobile.
My first sight of Hemlock House was of it at the top of the hill, every window lit up with a warm, yellow glow that defied the night. The nerd in me (which is pretty much all of me) thought of Tolkien, and the last homely house. Fox parked at the front door, and we went inside. I practically glued myself to Keme—in case he tried to run, sure, but also because I knew what it was like to come back, the mixture of embarrassment and relief, and the uncertainty of not knowing how to act.
Indira must have heard us, because she stepped into the hall at the same time we did. Her eyes went immediately to Keme. The boy stiffened. Then he took an awkward step toward her (being a teenager, I was starting to remember, was absolutely excruciating). Indira broke the tension of the moment by running to him. I’d never seen Indira run, but she did it the way she did everything—gracefully. She wrapped Keme in a hug, and after several long seconds, he put his arms around her, and his body softened. I had to look away, and instead, I traded an awkward glance with Fox; it wasn’t our moment, and we both knew instinctively that we had no right to it.
