“Yeah,” I said, thinking of my dad. Mine too.
After we ate, I cleared our plates and cleaned up until the counters and kitchen table looked a little better. A little more normal. I served up the bakery-fresh pumpkin pie.
“This is good stuff,” Nelson said, forking a bite. “Not bad, right?”
I thought about Miller and Holden, my friends I was going to meet later tonight at the Shack.
I thought about how things were okay in my clas
ses. Not failing any, at least. Frankie Dowd still gave me the stink eye, but it seemed like the score had been settled.
I thought about Shiloh Barrera.
We’d only spoken a handful of words since I’d asked her to come to the Shack. As close as I’d get to asking her out. Another moment of weakness. I’d had a hundred around her, always saying yes—to barbecue or help on a paper—when I should’ve been saying no.
Shiloh said no.
The right answer. You shouldn’t have fucking asked at all.
Now we only saw each other coming or going in History. She’d whisper with Violet, glancing at me sometimes as if I were vaguely familiar. Someone she used to know.
The nameless hunger in me grew sharp teeth then, but it was still my favorite part of the day.
And I thought about Shiloh with her grandmother, probably sitting down to their own Thanksgiving dinner at that moment. Safe. Happy.
“No,” I said to my uncle. “Not bad at all.”
That night, after hanging with Holden and Miller at the Shack, I had a small hope that the nightmares wouldn’t come. Because being with my friends was always good and dinner with Nelson hadn’t been half bad.
I was wrong.
I woke to my own ragged screams tearing out of my throat, to the bloody kitchen in Manitowoc slowly fading to the dark of my empty apartment in Santa Cruz.
“Fuck.”
I tore the covers off and sat on the edge of my bed, holding my head in my hands. My heart pounding, blood rushing in my ears, blood staining the floor…
The cheap clock radio said it was a little after three a.m. I gave up on sleep for the rest of the night, dressed, and headed out. After months of walking, I had a route now. Maryann first. I paused at her unit, listening. All quiet. The door closed and locked, I hoped.
Then I set off for Miller’s complex. All the windows were dark. Quiet. No trouble out of his mom’s boyfriend.
Next, I walked to the Bluffs, back to Nelson’s place. The TV was still on, droning through the open windows. I imagined he’d fallen asleep in the same chair where we’d eaten our version of Thanksgiving dinner hours before.
I kept walking.
No matter how hard I tried to pry it out of Holden, he wouldn’t tell Miller or me where he lived, so I didn’t have him on my route. Probably up in the Heights where the rich people were and too far from my shitty neighborhood. I’d still have walked it.
But Shiloh…
Her and Bibi’s house was in between my place and Central. In ten minutes, I was in her tree-lined neighborhood of small one-story cottages. Had to be careful here; if there was a Neighborhood Watch, I’d get busted, easy. No one would believe me if I told them what I was doing there. Or why.
The Barrera’s house was quiet and dark. Secure. No one suspicious or threatening out on the street.
Except for me.
I made the rounds three times—between Nelson, Maryann, Miller, and Shiloh—until dawn broke in the east behind the forested mountains. Then I returned to my complex and checked on Maryann once more before heading upstairs. I didn’t bother to change out of my clothes; I’d only get an hour or two of sleep if I were lucky.
I lay down in my bed, exhausted, and closed my eyes.