She’s all I have. She’ll die if she stays with me. I’ll die if I lose her.
I push myself harder, muscles responding as if there’s a cougar on my trail. I picture April inside Silas’s apartment, pouring over a dozen Math workbooks and my chest feels as though it could split in two. She has no idea what deep shit we’re in. More than anything, I would love to grab her and tell her it’s time to go. We never stay in the same place for too long and once again, this one isn’t safe. The people here want to rip us apart.
What a clever tactic. Astolia used guns to keep everyone in line, but here, it’s all paperwork. Letters are a lot cheaper than bullets. They’ll cut us up and remake us. They’ll decide where we live, who gets to be a family and what kind of work we’re expected to do, all without firing a single shot. The Grand Astrologue could take some notes.
My legs grow weak and I stumble to a halt, grasping my knees for support. I have no idea how far I’ve gone, but at some point the sun set and the wind picked up. It catches all the hot, sore spots on my body, knifing me further. I suddenly become aware of the balled-up paper in my lefthand, which has grown soft and crinkled from sweat. So much for treasuring my very first letter. I start ripping it. With each tear, my breath comes faster until the only way I can fight my mounting panic attack is by screaming. I howl like the wild animal these people take me for.
Finally, there’s nothing left but shreds on the gravel road. I crash to my knees, fighting to regain my breath. When the lightness in my head subsides, I hear a raven cawing from a distant tree. All at once, I’m alert and listening for danger. Did someone see me? Am I going to get another demerit? But no one answers me besides the crow. This damn island. There’s somehow too many people and too much space. How am I supposed to know whether I’m being watched?
I don’t know where I am, but I ran in a straight shot. I might as well turn around. Much as I don’t want to return to the acreage, April is there. I tell myself as I walk that I’ll think of something. I’ve protected April all by myself for nine years. Something will come to me. I get nothing but mounting darkness for my efforts as a thin moon rises overhead.
It’s about an hour (I’m starting to figure out how long those are) before I reach the acreage. I’m greeted by an intense pinprick of light that stops me in my tracks. The beam is a perfect circle, otherworldly and ethereal. I stare at it, stupefied. What’s causing it? For all I know, it could be an angel.
Then it swings around onto me and I am blinded. I reach up to shield my eyes, and someone sighs from behind the glow.
“Fucking finally.” Angels, it turns out, have dirty mouths.
“Sid?”
“Where the hell did you go?” He lowers the beam, striding forward.
“I went for a run.” My eyes follow his hand, still curious about the light. As he nears, I recognize the shape of the tool he’s holding. It’s just a flashlight. I’ve found dozens over the years in abandoned houses, but never one that works.
“You got a letter and then you went for a run? Without telling anyone?”
“I’m sorry, were you worried?” I look up as he comes within a couple feet of me. Even in the gloom I can make out the stitch in his brow and the rapid rise and fall of his chest, as if he’s been frantically running around for the past hour himself.
“No shit! Carlos said you got a letter from the government and then you disappeared! Of course I was—”
He’s cut short by my body colliding with his. The tears I’ve been too angry to cry all day leak down my cheeks. Piney notes, mingled with cigarette smoke, fill my head as I breath him in. “Thank you.”
Slowly, his arms wrap around me. I bury my ear into his chest, treasuring the thrum of an anxious heart. I should apologize for freaking him out, but it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. I know its rhythm so well. It beats with the same urgency mine has always given to April.
For the first time since my mother died, someone was worried aboutme.
SID IS SOdamn practical. We clearly need to talk. I should explain myself after that little display, but while I would prefer to blurt everything out and be done with it, he insists I need to eat first. Everyone else has already finished dinner, but there are leftovers. It’s only the usual stewed beans and potatoes that make up so many of our meals, but even if the food here is growing familiar, I’ll never stop being amazed at how abundant it is.
“Where’s April?” I ask.
“Already back to studying,” says Wendell as he ladles the stew into a bowl. “Wherewereyou?”
“Nowhere. Just went for a run.”
“Told you it was nothing. You’re paranoid, man,” Young Tom tells Sid, with all the confidence of a nineteen-year-old boy. Sid only shrugs.
And that, right there, is why I trust him. He could have said, “Actually, she showed up a sobbing mess, so suck it,” but he doesn’t.
Trust. The thought is freeing, and terrifying.
Once I’ve finished wolfing down my portion, Sid and Ihead for the duck pond. The bench creaks as his bulk settles next to me. The scent of him hits me again and heat floods my cheeks, so I look away. It’s silly, because there wasn’t any special meaning to the hug we shared. Sometimes, a person just needs to crash out on the first friend they can find. And that, I realize, is what I have started thinking of him as. For all I’ve fought it, Sid Charles is my friend.
“So.” His voice is a low rumble.
“So.” I swing my legs, not ready to meet his eye.
“What was the letter about?”
“I didn’t get the job.” With every word, I can feel my world collapsing like a rotted-out building.
