The Guardians

light until Sarah's details return.

'You don't look wel,' she says.

'I'm not.'

'Are you sick?'

'No more than usual.'

'Then what's going on?'

'It's not something I could explain.'

Sarah turns away and settles on the sofa in the living room. I folow her inside and sit next to her. I fight against leaning over and puling her to me. Then I fight against laying my head in her lap.

'Damn' she says, suddenly shaking her head hard. 'It's like old times, isn't it?'

'You mean you and me?'

'I mean you thinking you can't trust me.'

'Sarah, it's got nothing to do with trust. I just don't want you to get damaged.'

'Damaged? Like china? A box you'd write 'Fragile' on on moving day?'

'I don't see you like that.'

'But you don't see me being able to handle anything either.'

'It's just what men do.'

'How's that?'

'We protect. Even if it means being alone.'

'This conversation could have been one we had when we were sixteen.'

'Maybe so.'

'It makes me think that whatever was troubling you then is the same thing that's troubling you now. Am I right?'

'You're not wrong.'

'So if it's been around that long, it's time you took care of it.'

'Yes.'

'Because you don't have a chance—and I'l tel you this, you don't have a chance with me—if you've got this secret thing floating around for the rest of your life.'

She slides closer and kisses me. Then we kiss some more. When we finaly pul apart, Kieran is standing in the doorway.

'I'm hungry,' he announces. And then, with a grin my way, 'Hey, Trevor.'

'Hey.'

'Want to come up to my room and check out my PlayStation?'

I look to Sarah, who shrugs. 'You guys like griled cheese?' 'And bacon, please,' Kieran says. 'How about you, Trevor?'

'I think everything's better with bacon,' I say, which happens to be the truth.

After lunch, and after declining Sarah's offer (seconded by Kieran) to stay for dinner, I ask if I can get a lift back to the McAuliffes'. But once the two of them have driven off and left me looking up at Ben's attic window, the paint of its frame scabby and puke- green in the midday light, I decide I can't go inside. So I start walking again. Working out the kinks, I tel myself, though the truth is, I'm nothing but kinks these days. If I didn't have my body's spasms and jerks, I wouldn't be able to move at al.

The Beastie Boys scream.

'Helo?'

'Hey.'

'Randy? Stil here?'

'Unfortunately, yes.'

'What about Carl?'

'Gone.'

'So it's just us.'

'The gruesome twosome.'

In the sky above, a passenger jet draws a line of smoke at thirty thousand feet. A border that marks Grimshaw apart from the rest of the world.

'What are we going to do, Randy?'

'I've got an idea.'