I nodded. I was just glad to get out of this room where everything felt so serious and close and charged. Like I didn’t want him to move his hand away, but I didn’t want him to move any nearer either.
So we walked down the street, against the pull, to get some food. The pizzeria didn’t even pretend to be authentic. There were peeling laminate tabletops instead of checkered tablecloths, table legs made from metal instead of natural wood. The restaurant was illuminated by fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling instead of the low-hung, dimmed lights of the pizzerias in the movies. There weren’t even waiters. The cook, who was the only thing authentically Italian in the restaurant, shouted the orders from behind the register when the food was ready.
It didn’t matter. Johnny’s Pizzeria was the only sit-down pizza joint in town, it was across the street from the movie theater, and it was affordable for teenagers. The place was always packed.
I should’ve considered that before agreeing to go with Troy. As we walked in, bells jangling over our heads, my friends were heading out. Justin, who narrowed his eyes at me. Kevin, who ruffled my already messy hair on his way past. And behind them, Tara and Decker. Tara didn’t even glance at me as she passed, but Decker stopped.
“Hey,” he said. Troy stood a foot behind me, but Decker didn’t seem to notice him yet.
“Hi.” We were pathetic.
“So, I got you a Christmas present.”
“Oh, me, too—I mean a Hanukkah one, but I think I missed it.”
He smirked. “You always do. Okay if I stop by tomorrow around lunch?”
I nodded, and then Tara seemed to realize Decker wasn’t beside her any longer. She circled back and looped an arm through his. “Come on, we’re gonna be late for the movie.” She looked right at me as she said it. I tried not to look as nauseous as I felt.
Troy stepped beside me and put his arm around me. His hand rested on my hip, which in any other circumstance I’d find too intimate, but right now seemed just perfect. I leaned into his side. “Are these your friends?” he whispered into my ear.
Decker looked back and forth between us. “Do I know you?”
“Don’t think so. I’m Troy.”
“Decker.” Neither reached an arm out to shake hands. “You look really familiar.”
Troy shrugged. “I come in here for lunch a lot.”
“Come on,” Tara said, tugging at Decker’s arm.
Decker followed her, though he watched Troy closely as he passed. He had that look I knew too well, like he was trying to figure something out, and he hadn’t quite gotten there yet.
Troy paid for the food even though I protested. “Do you work, Delaney?” I didn’t answer. “That’s what I thought. I do. And I owe you for yelling at you. I don’t usually yell.”
We sat at a booth along the window and ate in silence. I heard sirens in the distance and shut my eyes against the painful memory. “Troy? How did we know the man was going to die in the fire?”
Troy’s eyes bulged and he whipped his head to the side to see if anyone had heard. Nobody was paying attention. He leaned forward and whispered, “We didn’t. He was sick. You saw it at the mall. He was sick.”
“But he died in the fire. I know it.” I looked at my palm and felt tears rush to my eyes.
“He was really, really sick. He was dying. You could feel that, right? He must’ve been so sick he left the stove on. Maybe he passed out before he could turn it off.”
I stared out the window across the street, where the old cinema stood. “Don’t worry,” Troy said between bites, “you’re prettier than her.”
“What? Who?”
“That girl with your ex.” I looked at him sideways. “You know, pathetic in her too-tight clothes, desperate for attention.”
Despite myself, I smiled. Then I laughed. “I can’t stand her. But he’s not my ex.”
“Then what is he?”
I searched for the right word to define Decker and me. To define what we were. “He’s my neighbor.” We went back to eating in silence, like that was a perfectly logical explanation for the awkward encounter.
Troy held on to his soda as he dumped the rest of his food in the trash. He pulled a pill out of his pocket, tossed it into the back of his mouth, and took a sip from his straw. Then he reached into his pocket again and held a pill out for me. “Do you need one?” he asked. “For the headaches.”
I cocked my head to the side. “They’re not that bad. I only get them when I read too much.”
Troy narrowed his eyes. “You don’t feel like someone is squeezing your head all the time?”
Not since waking up in the hospital without my medication. “No. Maybe you should see a doctor for that.”
He stared out the window, a faraway look. “Already told you, I don’t do doctors.”
Troy scuffed his boots on the sidewalk as we walked back to his work. He walked so close our arms kept brushing. “I’m glad I found you, Delaney Maxwell.”
I didn’t say anything, but I smiled at the concrete.
Troy tapped on the passenger side window when I started Mom’s car. I stabbed at the automated buttons on her door, opening every window but the right one. Troy opened the door and stuck his head in. “Come back Monday, okay? So I can check out your hand.”
When he closed the door, I successfully raised all the windows and drove home. Mom looked immensely relieved, probably because I made it home with plenty of time to spare before church.
Chapter 10
A stream of people filed into the old stone church. In the summer, tourists posed for pictures here. There was even an old-fashioned bell, still rung on the hour. And it was large enough to hold the population of my entire town and the surrounding three. Today, it probably did.
The church made me uncomfortable. Not church in general, just this one. Mom said it was classic, Dad said historic, but both terms were just code for old. I didn’t like old things. Old turns to ruin and decay. Decker went to Greece a few summers ago and showed me pictures from his trip.
“Aren’t these awesome?” he had said, pointing out photographs of the ancient ruins.
“Awesome,” I agreed, but I felt dizzy. The ruins were just a reminder that what had been was no longer. That everything we are will be gone someday. That I will be forgotten.
Old is dangerous. Our house wasn’t old yet, but it was getting there. There used to be a creak on the third step of our staircase, but over the years it had turned into a painful groan. I started skipping the step after that. One day, the ruin would begin and the house would crumble.
I recognized the irony. It was the new that almost killed me. New, barely formed ice, not solid enough to hold my weight. I couldn’t shake it. Last time I was at church, many months before, I’d spent most of the service staring upward, not toward God, but toward the rafters. Looking for signs of weakness. Knowing where the exits were in case the walls started to crumble around us. That was back in the spring. A lot of erosion could’ve happened since then.
I didn’t much like old people either. Nothing against them personally, but just like everything else, they would crumble and decay. They reminded me of what I’d become, and then unbecome. Maybe if I’d really known Dad’s parents it would have been different, but I never really had the chance. They used to visit from Florida in the summer, and we’d go down for Christmas, but since my grandma broke her hip three years ago, summer was out. And this year, my parents decided it wasn’t safe for me to travel. Lots of things weren’t safe anymore.