Or my family.
My eyes linger on the syringe on the floor, and I make up my mind. Cal’s right: there’s nothing we can do to help anyone except ourselves. I hoist Ivy a little higher in my arms and run after him toward the back stairs, as quickly and silently as I can.
CAL
In the studio, my entire being had a single, simple goal: get away. So once I bolt through the back door, into a deserted street with no police and no other people in sight, relief floods through me.
For about five seconds. Then all I can think is Now what? Mateo bursts out of the door after me, carrying a still-unconscious Ivy. The parking garage is a good half mile away, and Boney…Jesus.
Boney Mahoney might’ve died back there.
I’ve known Boney since kindergarten, long enough to remember how he got that ridiculous nickname. It was in second grade, when we all had cubbies in the classroom labeled with our names. We’d made the labels ourselves, with Magic Markers on construction paper. One day Kaitlyn Taylor tripped while she was carrying a cup of water, sending its contents splashing over Boney’s Brian Mahoney label. The marker ran so badly that all you could read was the initial of his first name and the end of his last name. Everyone called him B. Oney after that, which naturally morphed into Boney, and it stuck.
Besides him quizzing me about my dads, the longest conversation we’d ever had was during Kenny Chu’s birthday party at a rock climbing gym in fifth grade. It’s the only party Boney and I ever went to together, because Kenny’s mom made him invite every boy in class. We were both standing on one of the big cushy mats, waiting for our turn, when Boney looked around and said, “Why do you think they have gyms where you can climb rocks, but not where you can climb trees?”
I’d never thought about it before. “Maybe because it’s hard to grow trees inside,” I told him.
“You could make them. It’s not like these are real rocks,” Boney pointed out.
“True,” I said. “Someone should get on that.”
He cocked a finger at me, eyes narrowed. “If you invent it when you grow up and become a millionaire, I get half.” No surprise there; Boney was always looking for ways to make money. In fifth grade, he was best known for buying cheap candy and selling it to us during lunch at a huge markup. Which I bought, obviously, because candy.
Once we got to high school, he turned into Boney the burnout, and I barely thought about him. I’d almost forgotten about Boney the junior entrepreneur, with his tree-climbing gyms and his overpriced candy. My eyes sting, and I blink harder.
Mateo leans against the side of the building, Ivy cradled against his chest, and glances at me like he’s expecting maybe I had a plan beyond crashing through the back door. I don’t. All the decisiveness I had upstairs deserts me in an instant. The only choice I can make now is whether to hurl or pass out. Both seem like solid options, but my stomach decides for me. It seizes, and I bend over to vomit into a patch of grass.
“Okay,” Mateo says when I stand and shakily wipe my mouth. “We need to regroup.”
He has that Determined Mateo look I remember from the tail end of our friendship, when his dad hit the road to “find himself” as a roadie for a Grateful Dead cover band. Like Mateo had finally realized he’d been letting a useless person dictate half his life, so he was going to have to step up and…oh. Oh, okay. I’ve become the useless person that Mateo has to compensate for, and I both recognize and accept that in an instant. I’m relieved, actually. All I want is to follow someone else’s lead for a while.
Mateo strides toward the sidewalk, Ivy still in his arms, and looks both ways into the deserted street. An engine roars suddenly, way too close for comfort, and we barely have time to exchange panicked glances before a car careens around the corner. But it’s just some guy on his cell phone, who doesn’t even spare us a glance as he speeds past. As soon as he’s gone, Mateo starts moving again, half jogging across the street before he ducks into an alley between two buildings. I follow nervously, too shell-shocked to ask questions, as he winds through the narrow passageway.
It feels good to keep moving. When I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, I don’t have to think about what happened back there. Not just in the building, but in Lara’s literal studio. Her latest drawing half-finished on the nearest easel, as though she’d just been working on it. Which she should have been on a Tuesday morning. It’s her only day off, her best chance to create, and she’s always said she can’t concentrate at home.
So why wasn’t she there?
And why was Boney? Because that had to be Boney, right? Even though none of us had the guts to look beyond the sneakers, we saw him go in.