He offered me the Band-Aid, and I took it and wrapped it around the cut on my finger. It didn’t help the pain, but somehow it made things feel a little better. I gave him my home phone number and my dad’s cell. And it was nice, letting an adult just take over for once.
I decided to ask for something in return, something that I’d been wanting so badly to know. Maybe if Connor wouldn’t tell me, Alvaro would. “What happened exactly with Connor’s parents?”
He sighed deeply. “They’re addicts, Jack. Good, loving people taken by the terrible disease of addiction. They’ve been in prison for the past ten years, serving hard time for possession and trafficking.”
“So, they’re…criminals,” I said, letting the word sink in.
“Yes, they’re criminals. Listen Jack, I want you to have my number. May I?” I shrugged and handed him my phone, and he entered his digits. “If you ever need anything at all, or you find yourself wandering the streets again, please don’t hesitate to call or text me. Anytime.”
“Can’t you just go get Connor now? All he did was punch some asshole. Is that really worth spending a night in jail over?”
“You have to understand, Jack. Connor’s got…things he needs to deal with. Impulses. Dangerous ones. He does things that scare me. Reckless things. Sometimes I think he…” He cleared his throat and shook his head as if he’d said too much. But I needed to know.
“You think he what? Just tell me. He wouldn’t be mad if you told me.” I didn’t know if this was true, but I didn’t care. I needed to understand.
Alvaro cleared his throat. “He’s been through a lot. Things I can’t even imagine. Sometimes I think he has some kind of a death wish.”
I shut my eyes tight, trying to keep the room from tilting, trying hard to breathe. In, out, in out. If I just breathed, it would all be okay.
“You think he wants to die?” I asked. My voice sounded so small. The room—the kitchen, the house, the stool I was sitting on—it all felt so far away.
Alvaro’s cell phone rang. We both jumped, and he looked relieved as he took the call and left the room, giving me a look that said we’d talk about it later.
But I knew we wouldn’t. And that was okay. He’d already said enough.
47.
The next morning, I listened to Alvaro’s car pull into the garage, waiting for Connor like an anxious puppy. The door opened and there he was, looking dirty and tired but still impossibly beautiful in an old UCLA sweatshirt. After Alvaro squeezed past us, I hugged Connor, burying my face in the soft fabric.
“I need to shower,” he mumbled into my neck.
“I don’t care,” I said.
He locked his arms around me, and I inhaled his familiar smell.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking pathetically. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, rubbing my back. “Why are you sorry?”
He pulled away a little to look me in the eye, and then spotted my bruised, beat-up knuckles. “What happened?”
“Jack, you mind helping me with the groceries?” Alvaro asked, like he’d sensed I didn’t want to answer.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” I said to Connor.
By the time I came upstairs, Connor was curled up under the covers, asleep. He looked so peaceful. I tried to lie down as quietly as possible, but the second my head touched a pillow his eyes snapped open.
“Hey,” he said, looking happy to be awakened.
“I’m guessing you didn’t sleep last night,” I said.
He shook his head and pressed his face into the pillow, moaning. “Trust me man, you never want to end up in jail. I feel like shit.”
I stripped down to my boxers and crawled under the sheets beside him. “Does he care?” I asked, tilting my head toward downstairs.
“No,” he said. “He never comes in here. And he knows.”
“About us?” I asked. The words were tangled deep in my throat, and saying them aloud felt like melting off the frost. “Did you tell him?”
Connor shrugged. “Not really, but…he just knows. You know?”
I thought of my mom. How she just knew. How she just saw me. It hurt so badly to think of her.
I inched closer to his chest, and he wrapped his arm around me, letting me huddle into the warmth of his body. His breathing was starting to slow and deepen, and in spite of all the anger and anxiety coiled tight in me like a spring, I felt myself beginning to unravel.
“What happened to your hand?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously, it’s nothing.”
“Jack—”
“Can we just lie here like this for a little while? And not talk?”
He was silent for a moment and then rolled over from me and defiantly went to sleep.
I lay there listening to him breathe, tracing I love you, too, on his skin with my fingertips.
48.
I woke up to Connor bringing me coffee. It smelled good, gourmet. I reached for it gratefully.
I was groggy and dazed from the nap, the sun already starting to set, but my headache had receded to a dull pressure. Connor sat down on the bed and told me we needed to talk about something, something that couldn’t wait.
“I lied to you the other day,” he said. “About Jess and I talking in the hallways. It wasn’t nothing. We were talking about…about Toby. About something that happened to her.”
The coffee burned my tongue. “Why would you lie to me? What are you even talking about?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t know how you’d react. I barely knew what to do myself when I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
Connor sighed and lay down on the bed next to me, examining his nails. “She was crying in Spanish. Like, tears in her eyes and everything, head down on her desk, and she doesn’t really have any friends in that class. And we talk sometimes, you know, about homework and assignments and stuff, and so—”
“Connor,” I said, putting the mug down and inching closer to him.
