I hadn’t planned on telling him about Lotty or my nightmares, but in the dark, with the warmth of his body against mine, I suddenly blurted, “It’s Lotty. I’m so scared—scared she’s going to leave me the way my mother did. It didn’t matter that I loved my mother, that I did what I could to look after her. She left me anyway. I don’t think I can bear it if Lotty abandons me too.”
“So you have to keep everyone around you on pins and needles all the time? Is that it? So guys like me, or even the old man downstairs, don’t get enough of a hold on you to leave you in the lurch?”
I held him more tightly, but couldn’t say anything else. Maybe he was right, though. Maybe that’s why I reacted so roughly every time Mr. Contreras, or Lotty, or anyone else worried about my safety. It could even be why I pushed myself to the brink time and again. When my muscles slowed down, would I find other strengths to get me across those chasms? I shivered in the summer air.
The End