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Daisy had brought leftover pizza for our picnic, and we sat underneath our school's one big oak tree, halfway to the football field. It was frigid, and both of us were bundled into our winter coats, hoods up, my jeans stiff on the frozen ground.
I didn't have gloves, so I tucked my fists into the coat. It was no weather for a picnic.
"I've been thinking a lot about Pickett," Daisy said.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, just--while you were gone, I kept thinking about how weird it is to leave your kids like that, without even saying good-bye. I almost feel bad for him, to be honest. Like, what has to be wrong with him that he doesn't at least buy a burner phone somewhere and text his kids and tell them he's okay?"
I felt worse for the thirteen-year-old who wakes up every morning thinking that maybe today is the day. And then he plays video games every night to distract from the dull ache of knowing your father doesn't trust or love you enough to be in contact, your father who privileged a tuatara over you in his estate plans. "I feel worse for Noah than for Pickett," I said.
"You've always empathized with that kid," she said. "Even when you can't with your best friend." I shot her a glance and she laughed it off, but I knew she wasn't kidding.
"So, what do your parents do?" I asked.
Daisy laughed again. "My dad works at the State Museum. He's a security guard there. He likes it, because he's really into Indiana history, but mostly he just makes sure nobody touches the mastodon bones or whatever. My mom works at a dry cleaners in Broad Ripple."
"Have you told them about the money yet?"
"Yeah. That's how Elena got that college fund. They made me put ten grand in it. My dad was, like, 'Elena would do the same for you if she came into some money.' Like hell she would."
"They weren't mad?"
"That I came home one day with fifty thousand dollars? No, Holmesy, they weren't mad."
Inside the arm of my coat, I could feel something seeping from my middle fingertip. I'd have to change the Band-Aid before history, have to go through the whole annoying ritual of it. But for now, I liked being next to Daisy. I liked watching my warm breath in the cold.
"How's Davis?" she asked.
"Haven't talked to him," I said. "I haven't talked to anyone."
"So it was pretty bad."
"Yeah," I said.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, it's not your fault."
"Did you . . . do you think about killing yourself?"
"I thought about not wanting to be that way anymore."
"Are you still . . ."
"I don't know." I let out a long, slow breath, and watched the steam of it disappear in the winter air. "I think maybe I'm like the White River. Non-navigable."
"But that's not the point of the story, Holmesy. The point of the story is they built the city anyway, you know? You work with what you have. They had this shit river, and they managed to build an okay city around it. Not a great city, maybe. But not bad. You're not the river. You're the city."
"So, I'm not bad?"
"Correct. You're a soli
d B-plus. If you can build a B-plus city with C-minus geography, that's pretty great."
I laughed. Beside me, Daisy lay down and motioned for me to lie next to her. We were looking up, our heads near the trunk of that lone oak tree, the sky smoke-gray above us past our fogged breath, the leafless branches intersecting overhead.
