At first, I was scared that he’d read my letters to you. But when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see the lava—not the slightest sign of it.
It turns out Gabriel’s prom is tonight too, which makes sense. His school is a Catholic boys’ school called St. Xavier and it’s practically walking distance from mine. Our teamsplay each other all the time and girls from our school can audition for their plays and we can even take certain classes there if we want.
Gabriel had been thinking about his prom just like I’d been thinking about mine. But unlike me, he was imagining us going to it together—and the images in his brain were so beautiful, he said, it made him know that it was meant to be.
If Gabriel ever joked about anything, I would have assumed that was what he was doing. His school is just a few miles away from my house, where Papa Pete’s body was discovered. And obviously, he knows all about the police investigation, the unnamed witness, the search parties. He’s said it himself: we’re fugitives.
But Gabriel doesn’t joke. “I know we can’t go to the actual prom because we don’t have tickets,” he said. “But we can go to the park afterward.” He was talking about Pullman Park, which is a big field on the outskirts of town with a baseball diamond on one end, tennis courts on the other. After prom every year, the seniors from both our schools crowd into that park and stay there till dawn, drinking six-packs and blasting their car radios and fooling around. “We can stay on the outskirts where no one will see us,” he said. “We can watch everybody and it’ll be like we’re there.”
I was worried about Gabriel, and also a little frightened. His baseball cap was pulled low over his forehead and as he spoke, his eyes shone out from under the bill in a strange way I’d never seen before. Had he lost his mind? It sure seemed like it. And the panic I felt right then... It made me realize again how much I need him and what a sorry, sad state my life is in that Gabriel is the only person in the world who cankeep me safe. I said his name quietly and calmly, as though he had a bomb planted under his skin and if I spoke too loudly, he’d explode and kill us both. “Don’t you think someone might spot us?”
He started laughing. And then he pulled off his baseball cap. His hair, close to shoulder-length before, was cut very short and bleached so blond it was nearly white. I still can’t get over it. He looks like a different boy entirely. “You’re next,” he said. He showed me the scissors. The box of drugstore hair dye in Darkest Copper. Gabriel’s in the bathroom right now, mixing up that dye. He says I’ll make a gorgeous redhead.
Love,
April Your Future Mom
5:00P.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
I am in a dressing room at Mervyn’s right now. I am trying on a pale green dress with spaghetti straps. I’m not crazy about it. It makes me look sickly white and it clashes with my hair (although you can’t really blame the dress for that. Everything clashes with my hair). But the good thing about it is, it fits under my clothes.
Gabriel is standing right outside the dressing room, and I am looking at myself in the mirror. My haircut is horrible—like I’ve got a copper bowl on my head. My skin is broken out from all the fast food I’ve been eating, and I’m so pale, like someone who’s been living in a cave her whole life. I don’trecognize my reflection, and I’m about to shoplift my own prom dress. Gabriel just asked how it’s going in here and I have no idea what to say.
I just took the picture of Jenny out of my jacket pocket. I am looking at her smile and her pink stuffed dog, Todd, in the hopes that it will make me feel stronger like it has in the past. But the only thing I can think of is that if Jenny were to see me now, she wouldn’t know who I was.
I don’t know how to steal. I’m going to get arrested for shoplifting, and the cops will find out who I really am, and Gabriel and I will be tried as murderers.
“We’re both in this together.” That’s another thing Gabriel says a lot, and he’s right about that. If someone pulls you into a room with them and locks the door and sets the room on fire, it’s still true that you’re both in it together.
Love,
Your Future Mom
6:00P.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
I didn’t get caught! I wore the dress out of the store under my biggest T-shirt and jeans and no one stopped me.
This is going to sound weird, and I know I shouldn’t say this to my future daughter. But I found it kind of thrilling. There’s something about walking past a department store security guard, a stolen dress under your clothes, that makes you feel both powerful and invisible at the same time. And it’s been so long since I’ve felt either of those things.
Gabriel says that we’re transforming into true outlaws, the two of us. He believes that we’ll be folk heroes, like Bonnie and Clyde.
I don’t know about that. But it is true that I’m becoming someone else—a different person, unlike anyone I’ve ever known.
Love,
April
Nineteen
Robin
“HOW LONG CANshe be like this?” Robin asked the nurse.
The nurse, whose name was Verity, didn’t say anything right away. They were in the ICU at St. Catherine’s, the two of them, watching Robin’s mother, pillows propped up behind her head, her chest rising and falling, the ventilator working away. Over the past few days, Robin had asked this question repeatedly of doctors, but every response had been both hasty and tentative. “It varies.” “There are many factors.” “I can’t predict the future.”
