When I wake the next morning, I check to see if Brian’s responded to Noah’s post (nope), check to see if Noah’s already gone like yesterday (yup), and then, despite bone-deep disappointment about Oscar the Girl-Exhaler and uneasiness about both bloody ferocious Guillermo and the vigilante ghost squad, I’m out the door.
I need to get NoahandJude out of that rock.
I’m a few steps down the hallway at Guillermo’s, when I hear raised voices coming from the mailroom. Guillermo and Oscar are arguing intently about something. I hear Oscar say, “You couldn’t possibly understand! How could you?” Then Guillermo, with an unfamiliar hardness in his voice: “I understand very well. You take risks on that motorcycle, but that is it. You are a coward in a tough leather jacket, Oscore. You let no one in. Not since your mother die. You hurt before you can be hurt. You are afraid of the shadow.” I about-face and am almost to the door and out of there, when Oscar says, “I let you in, G. You’re . . . like a father . . . the only one I’ve had.”
Something in his voice stops me, sears me.
I rest my forehead against the cold wall, their voices quieter now, unintelligible, not understanding how it can be that even after everything that happened yesterday with Brooke, all I want to do is run to the motherless boy in the next room who is afraid of the shadow.
I do not.