Point? I write and turn the paper towards her. I’m not trying to give her attitude, actually. I just want to know if I’m going to be fighting to keep the one thing that’s been keeping me sane. And, really, it’s not even as much Josh as it is that garage.

“Does it help? Being there?”

My instinct is to say that nothing helps, because that’s always my instinct, but it’s not true this time. Everything about being there helps. It’s a place to be and something to do and a person who doesn’t compare me to Emilia. I don’t just nod. I write yes on the paper.

“I won’t pretend to like it. But you’re alone here all the time and I don’t like that, either.” She hesitates and I don’t know if I should write something or just see if she says anything else. And she does. “Are you sleeping with him?”

Well, yes, I am, in fact, sleeping with him, but I’d put money on the fact that that’s not what she’s asking. I shake my head, no, because it’s true, even though I’m not sure for how long.

“Really?” she asks and I don’t know if she’s disappointed or relieved or just skeptical.

Really

“I still want to know where you are.”

I nod. I don’t blame her for that and it doesn’t matter anyway, because I know she can track my phone. It’s just courtesy and courtesy I can do.

“He’s really cute,” she smiles, her face full of mischief.

And I nod to that, too.

CHAPTER 42

Josh

“How many miles did you run?” I ask when she walks back into the garage just after ten and strips the can of pepper spray from her waist and the heart monitor off her wrist.

“Didn’t track it. Just ran,” she pants while the sweat drips down her face. She grabs a bottle of water and comes up next to me, looking over my shoulder. “How far did you get?”

“Almost done. I was about to quit. It’ll be ready to finish tomorrow, if it’s not raining.”

“I can help when I get done at Clay’s.” She’s been at Clay’s at least twice a week for a month. He’s doing some sort of freaky layered montage thing. I don’t get it. I like the ones where I can just see her face.

“Tell him he’s monopolizing you and I’m starting to get jealous.”

“I’ll let him know,” she smiles. “He’s got that competition next month and I can’t sit this weekend so I said I’d do it after school.” Between researching with Drew, sitting for Clay, running, school and building with me she never stops for a second. She just signed up for some Krav Maga class, too, whatever that is. She’s not good with down time.

“Is that the one you’re going to with him?”

She nods, tilting back the rest of the bottle of water. “It’s at some art gallery in Ridgemont. They use it every year for the state competition and they display all the finalists’ work.”

“Still going home this weekend?” I wish she wasn’t because I’m used to her now. I realized how much it sucks to cook alone and eat alone and watch TV alone and generally be alone.

“I said I would.”

She never sounds happy about going home and I have absolutely no clue why, except that it has something to do with all the scars she has and the stories she won’t tell me. Whenever she comes back from there, it’s like she’s out of focus for a few days, like a hologram that keeps blurring in and out. She’s always been like that, like music and lyrics to two different songs. It’s just worse after she’s been back to Brighton.

“You don’t talk to anyone in your family?”

“You know I don’t.” She’s getting the where-are-you-going-with-this tone in her voice that I’m so familiar with now.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t tell them what they want to hear. If I talk to them, I’ll have to lie and I don’t want to.” It’s more information than she’s ever given me before and it’s still not enough. It doesn’t tell me crap.

“You stopped talking just so you wouldn’t have to lie?”

“I didn’t plan to. I just wanted a day and then I just wanted one more day and then one more after that and that turned into a week, which turned into a month and you get the idea.”

“They just let you stop? They didn’t care?”

“They cared, but it’s not like they could do anything about it. What were they going to do? Shake me? Yell at me and insist? Ground me? I never left the house anyway. They didn’t really have a lot of options. Plus, according to my impressive collection of therapists, it was a very natural response, whatever that means.” Natural response to what, Sunshine? Please keep talking. But she doesn’t. Just another random piece in a puzzle made of all the wrong pieces.

“Wouldn’t lying have been easier than silence?”

“No. I’m crap at it. I don’t believe in doing something if you can’t excel at it.” She’s back to sarcasm and we’re effectively done with this conversation. I know how it works and I wonder how long I’ll let her get away with it.

I start cleaning up and she walks over to crash in the chair while she waits, finally noticing the bag I put there earlier.

“You don’t want my ass on your counters but you’re putting crap on my chair,” she jokes, picking it up to put it on the ground next to her.

“Open it.”

She looks in the bag and pulls out the shoe box, then narrows her eyes at me. I watch because I want to see her face when she opens the box. I know it’s a stupid present, probably not the thing girls want to get. I’m not really an expert on the whole thing.

And then maybe I am, because her face lights up when she sees them.

“You bought me boots?” she says, like I just gave her diamonds.

“I didn’t get to give you anything for your birthday. I hope they fit. I looked at your shoes one day and they said seven so that’s what I got.” I shove my hands in my pockets.

She’s already taking off her running shoes and trying them on.

“Steel-toed?” she asks.

I nod.

“And black.” She smiles and I love that smile more because I think I put it there.

“And black,” I confirm, though I don’t know why.

“You didn’t wrap them,” she scolds.

“Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn’t call me on that.”

“I’m kidding,” she laughs and I could listen to it forever. She stands and examines the boots on her feet. “They’re perfect.”

“Now you can get around the good stuff in shop.”

Her smile fades. “I can’t use any of it.”

“You can use some of it,” I say, because I want the smile back and because it’s true. She can do more than she thinks she can. For some reason, she just won’t try. “And I can be your other hand when you need it.”

She’s walking around the garage and flexing her feet to break them in and I realize that there really is nothing sexier than this girl in black work boots. “You’ll have to bring them to school to change into.”

“Screw that,” she says, and I get the smile back tenfold. “I’m wearing these to school.”

“So I did okay?” I ask, just because I want to hear her say it.

“Almost better than the pennies.” She pushes herself up on her toes and kisses me and she’s salty and sweaty and awesome.

“You didn’t kiss me for the pennies,” I say.

“I didn’t know I was allowed.”

***

She refuses to go inside once she’s got those boots, so we spend another hour in the garage, where she helps me start measuring and marking for a side table she designed for a shop assignment. It’s a really cool design with Queen-Anne-style legs. I wish she could build the whole thing herself but the hand does make some of it impossible and she doesn’t have the expertise for all of it yet, anyway. I’ve been at this for ten years and I still have trouble with a lot things. I do walk her through every step, though. She yells at me if I do something without explaining, because even if she can’t do it herself, she wants to at least know how.

I don’t get nearly as much done as I used to out here, but I think it might be worth it, because there’s something seriously hot about her bossing me around in my garage with a hammer in her hand. I haven’t been bossed around in a while and she’s really cute when she’s determined and pissed, so I don’t mind so much.

I’ve lived and breathed sawdust for as long as I can remember. I think she does now, too.

CHAPTER 43

Josh

Expected. That’s what we’ve become and it’s scarier than anything else.

We’re in the courtyard at lunch every day. We don’t touch each other or laugh, and of course, we don’t talk, but we’re together. No one bothers us. Other than an occasional visit from Clay, the force field stays intact.

I’m trying to finish reading the story Ms. McAllister assigned, because there’s a quiz fifth hour today and I haven’t gotten through it yet. She leans over to see what I’m reading and tilts her head just enough so that it just barely grazes my shoulder and even the slightest contact from her makes me feel home. It’s instinctual. I turn toward her and kiss her hair before I realize what I’ve done in a courtyard full of people. For us, it’s a version of PDA on par with ripping each other’s clothes off and performing a live sex show right here.

I wait for the world to implode, or at least for the looks and comments to start, but there’s nothing. No distinguishable change in the atmosphere at all. And I wonder if the impossible has happened. That this, us, she and I, we have become normal. As soon as the word enters my mind, I know it’s the wrong one. We haven’t become normal, we’ve become expected. And not just by everyone at school. I’ve come to expect us, too. I expect her. I expect her here. I expect her at home. I expect her in my life.

And it’s terrifying.

CHAPTER 44

Nastya

“I like to talk, so I’m just going to imagine our conversation here,” Clay says while he’s drawing me on his back porch after school. I smile and he yells at me to put my face back, which isn’t easy, because Clay yelling at me is even funnier.

“Normally you’d hit all the g*y questions first because that’s what people like to do,” he says while he draws, and I don’t know how he can concentrate on both things at once. I’m a one thing at a time type of person which is why I have so much trouble keeping my mouth shut. Silence takes a serious amount of discipline. Because when you can talk but you just don’t, part of your mind is constantly occupied with concentrating on making sure you don’t open your mouth. Some days I wonder if it would be easier if I physically couldn’t speak because then I wouldn’t have to think about it all the time.

“First question is always the classic Did you always know you were g*y? That’s a good one,” he says, looking at me without really looking. “Answer? I don’t know. I don’t really think so, because I didn’t really know what g*y was ‘til I was like ten. So I’m not sure. When I knew, I knew and I didn’t really try to figure it out but people always ask that one.”

He picks up a gray squishy eraser thing and rubs it against the paper.

“Next one is usually Have you ever been with a girl, and if you haven’t, then how can you be sure you’re g*y? Answer? Not telling. None of your business. Next.” He puts the eraser down and looks at the picture like he’s not happy with something.

“Then there’s the one I don’t mind answering. Were your parents pissed?” The eraser is back again. “Not really. I don’t think they were pissed. They didn’t tell me if they were. Disappointed? Maybe. But if so, they didn’t outright say that either. I got the It may not be the path we would have chosen for you, but we just want you to be happy speech. It’s a classic. I think it’s on a website or something so parents can just print it off and read it, because both of them said the exact same thing, like they coordinated it or something. They haven’t been together since I was two, so I had to do the coming out thing twice with them. I think Janice, my dad’s wife, was a little freaked out, but I didn’t care what she thought so much. And she’s been cool since.” Damn, this boy can talk. I don’t think he took a breath once. I wonder if I should be embarrassed that I wanted to ask him every one of those questions, and if I talked, I probably would have by now.