Page 144 of Down Bad

I can’t just let him go.

I’ve sat here long enough stewing and thinking and typing, and I’m about out of things to type, think, or stew about.

I need to talk to Diego directly.

“Tell Lance I’m sorry,” I say to Cash, even though I’m pretty sure Lance got lost on his way to the bar or whatever he ordered is sitting on a counter somewhere in the kitchen, forgotten. Either way, I’m out of my seat while Cash stares after me, stunned by my sudden departure.

I get home in a hurry. Pulling into my driveway, I don’t know why I’m surprised to see his dad’s car still sitting out front, as if he might have come home, miraculously solved it in ten minutes out of sheer anger, and hit the road in it.

I’m at his door right away. I knock.

No answer.

Another knock, more urgent. Still nothing.

I put an ear to the door, certain I can hear him. But the longer I stand here, the less certain I am. “Diego?” I call out. “C’mon. Let’s just talk. Please.”

I move across his porch and peek in through the window like a creeper.

Nothing. No sign of life. No light on.

I step back, stumble off the porch, and stand in the grass like a garden gnome. The bed of wildflowers sits eerily in the silence and the darkness of this awful night.

He’s in there, isn’t he? Ignoring me? Being petty? Sulking?

Or I misunderstood everything and he doesn’t want to talk.

He’s already said his goodbyes, whether I heard them or not.

Well, that’s messed up.

“Hey!” Now I’m at his side window like a lunatic, tapping on the glass of the guestroom. “Diego, c’mon! I know you’re in there!” I press my face to the window, trying to see in.

Then I’m at the side kitchen window. “Diego!”

I’m at the front door again, ringing the doorbell over and over and over.

This goes on for fifteen minutes, by the way.

I’m not proud of myself.

And when I finally drop my ass on the front step of the porch, sitting there numb and quiet, I wonder if he really is, in fact, gone. That he didn’t even stay the night.

That he would actually just go. Be done with me.

Just like that.

Where would he have gone without a car?

Headlights blind me as a truck turns onto my street, roars its engine, then stops right by the curb. I sit up at once, blinking the light out of my eyes, my heart swelling with hope.

Then the door swings open.

Oh. It’s Lance.

“Go, go, I got this,” he says to someone—Chad, I’m guessing—then starts over the lawn carrying a doggy bag. “Have you eaten?” he calls out to me. “Of course you haven’t. What’re you doing out here on this porch like a lost puppy? Come on, Wy-Guy, let’s go. Chad’s going home. I’m all yours tonight. Inviting myself in.”

He heads toward my house without further discussion.