“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t want to be touched right now. I just—I need a few minutes.” She gets up and walks back into the house, carrying the empty backpack with her. I wait outside with Handsome and Fritz, watching the fire die and thinking about what she said. What she said about getting used to it, and what she said about me being an idiot. The dogs doze in the sun. After a while, I hear footsteps in the grass behind me. I look up, ready to do whatever Marcelina needs—but it’s not her. It’s Uncle Trev.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks, waiting a few steps away until I nod. He never sits with me unless I say yes.
“What’s up?” I ask, watching the embers in the little pit we dug.
“I smelled smoke and wanted to see what was going on.” He picks up Marcelina’s forked stick and pushes a glowing log around. “It’s awful hot for a fire.”
“We had some stuff to burn,” I tell him. It’s out of my mouth before it occurs to me that I should have an answer ready in case he asks what needed burning, but he just nods.
“So, Marcelina’s in the house crying her eyes out,” he says mildly. “What’s going on?”
“Um.” I flip Handsome’s floppy ear back and forth. “Nothing I can really share.”
“Hmph.” Uncle Trev chews on this for a minute, then shakes his head. “Look, I’m not going to get into her business. I just need to know that she’s okay. She’s crying like she just found out her best friend died. But I know that’s not the case, because you’re out here, and you’re alive.”
“I’m her best friend?” I blurt. I regret asking immediately.
“Far as I can tell,” he says. “Are you still her best friend? You guys didn’t just have a big blow-up or anything, right?”
“No, we’re good,” I say. “I mean, she gave me some real talk today, but nothing bad. She’s just, um. She’s going through a hard time right now.”
“She’s not hurting herself or anything, though, right?” He says it fast, so fast that I almost don’t catch it. He pokes the crumbling log in the fire a couple more times, not looking at me. His face is set.
“No,” I say softly. “She’s not hurting herself.”
“Can you promise me that you’d tell me if she was?” He looks at me and there’s the feeling again, the one I had with my dads last night. Uncle Trev isn’t talking to me like a kid right now. He’s not asking me if I’m lying to him. He’s trusting me to take care of someone he cares about.
“I promise,” I say, and I lift my hand to hold out a pinky finger. But then I think twice, and I hold out my whole hand.
We shake on it.
He stands up, brushing grass off his butt. “I’m going to go back in and check on her,” he says.
“She actually said that she wants space,” I tell him. “She needs to be alone for a little while.”
“Okay,” he says. “I won’t bother her or get into her space or anything. But I gotta make sure she’s okay, you know? I’ll leave her alone, but I can’t leave her alone.” He musses the back of his hair, frowning. “I’m the only adult around right now and I gotta make sure she’s safe. Do you want to come with?”
I shake my head. “It’ll make her feel ganged-up-on. When she asks for space, she really needs it, you know?”
“I know,” he says, nodding. “I’ll just poke my head in to make sure she’s in one piece and then I’ll leave her be. I promise.”
He walks back toward the house with his hands deep in his pockets. He’s a good guy. He’s trying to do the right thing. I wish I could convince him not to check on Marcelina, but at the same time, I’m really happy that he’s going to check on her. Because maybe she needs checking on. Maybe she needs someone making sure she’s in one piece. I think I’d notice if she was feeling bad enough to need checking on, but then, there are lots of things I don’t notice.
I’m glad Trev is here for her, is all. I’m glad that Marcelina isn’t going to be alone-alone. I look around me at the green grass and feel a pang of something like emptiness, and even though I know I’m not alone-alone, I feel lonely. I pull out my phone and text Roya.
Hey.
She texts back so quickly that I wonder if we hit send at the same time. Wyd?
Getting slobbered on by Handsome and Fritz.
She responds with her favorite picture of Fritz, from his birthday party a year and a half ago. We’d filled a cupcake wrapper with peanut butter, and his snout was covered in it. Roya caught a photo of him in the exact moment that he was trying to lick his own eyebrow. It’s a picture with a lot of tongue. She captions it Tell him I said he’s a good boy.
So I do. I poke at the embers in the fire pit with a stick, and I tell Fritz he’s a good boy, and I wait for Marcelina to come outside into the gray world.
19.
WHEN I WAKE UP ON Monday morning, there’s a text from Roya waiting for me. My heart stutters, then rights itself when I see that it’s just a message on the group text. I squint blearily at the screen. When I see what she’s written, my stomach drops.
Senior wing girls’ room 1st period 911
It’s the “911” that does it. That’s a summons that means exactly what it implies: Emergency. Come right away. No questions, no arguments: I need you.
There’s a long line of thumbs-up emojis from everyone else
