Page 146 of Down Bad

SOS.

After all, he told me he’d always come when I send one, right?

It delivers.

Then I stare at the screen, waiting for him to read it.

I’m still staring half an hour later, but now sideways, as I’ve since laid my head down on my outstretched arm on the table. My eyes keep feeling heavy, then light again, then heavier. Suddenly, they’re closed, and all I know is the hum of the fridge nearby.

That hum becomes an engine in the morning.

I lift my head at once at the sound.

Through the kitchen window, a tow truck.

Hooked to Diego’s father’s car.

“Wait!” I shout, bursting from my front door. “Hey! You can’t take that! What’re you doing??” I trip on my way over the lawn, nearly eating the grass. The morning sunlight blinds me. “Stop!”

The bearded man pauses, looking up at me with equally tired eyes. “What?” he grunts. “Get the wrong car?”

I nearly crash into him when I finally come to a stop. “Why’re you taking this vehicle? What’s—Why’re—Give me a second, catching my breath …”

He frowns, reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his phone. “Marcos and Charlotte Valdez.” He points at the screen. “This is their residence, isn’t it?”

I freeze, staring at their names on the screen.

They ordered the car to be towed?

“Oh.” I step back, not understanding. I step back again. Then I drop to my knees in the grass, exhausted suddenly. “Sorry.”

The man doesn’t say much more, getting back to his work. I’m just a pile of limbs as I watch, defeated completely, as he finishes the job. Then the car is taken away, just like that, slowly at first, then vanishing around the corner, out of sight, gone.

Just like him.

Did he finally give up fixing the car?

Do his aunt and uncle know he left, too?

Or is it just a courtesy given to the new homeowners, whoever they are?

This feels like a message.

Even if it isn’t.

Making Diego’s departure official in a way that the empty, unresponsive house last night wasn’t.

He really is gone.

—30—

Diego

I sit in the lobby staring off at the window, morning sunlight burning through like the world’s on fire.

Cup of cheap free orange juice from a machine.

A rubber pancake and a mound of fake eggs.