“Okay. You can visit.”
It was too cold to stand on the deck. We got coffees and sat by a window, and scalded our tongues. She reached in her pocket and pulled something out. It was the picture, of me pushing her in the stroller.
“I found this with your stuff last night, when I was looking for the phone. I took it, in case I didn’t see you again. But you probably want it.”
I did want it. Even if there was someone else just outside the frame, even if the pose was a setup. It was still something true about us. She held it by its edge, looking at it closer. “You have to call me, too, if you need help. You can’t, like, live on the street.”
“I know. I won’t.”
She handed the picture back to me. I put it in my coat pocket. My arm throbbed and sweated under the plastic wrap. I rolled up my sleeve and prodded it.
“In a couple days your tattoo will itch like a motherfucker,” Dixie said. “Don’t scratch it. Keep it clean and moisturized. If it flakes a little, don’t freak out; it’s not coming off, it’s just the top layer of skin.”
“It looks good,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It looks really good.”
27.
DIXIE TOOK a cab home. There wasn’t time for more of a good-bye than we’d had on the ferry, not with the driver watching and the meter going.
I got in a different cab and went straight to school, to Mr. Bergstrom’s office. The door was closed. I knocked, and he opened it. I could see he had another student in there. I was so happy to see his face.
“Hi,” I said, struggling against tears. “It wasn’t fine.”
When the other student had gone, I told him, “I found some money. I found this money and it seemed like . . . it seemed like something that could help me with what I wanted.”
“You found money? Where?”
“I—”
“Wait.” He held up his hand and lowered his voice. “Legally, you’re supposed to report found money. I mean, they don’t really care if it’s not that much, but it’s basically theft. It wasn’t that much, was it?”
What if you find it in your own house? Under your own bed?
“No,” I said. “Not that much.”
After that I worried what else I shouldn’t say. I didn’t want legal trouble. Maybe for my dad I wouldn’t care. But for Dixie, for Mom, I didn’t know the right thing to do. So I didn’t tell him about the drugs, either. Everything else, though, I told. A lot of which he already knew. Feeling like home wasn’t home, feeling like no one cared about me, feeling like I was the only responsible one in the family and worrying all the time that I should be doing something to make sure it didn’t fall apart.
He wrote in his notebook while I talked. Then he asked, “Where’d you go? You missed some days of school. I was worried.”
“I ran away,” I said. “That’s all. And I’m not going back.” I’d been wrong when I thought I’d never feel scared again, because, in the middle of talking to Mr. Bergstrom, I felt more scared than I’d been through the whole thing. Like a cage was going to drop down around his office and I’d be dragged home. “If anyone tries to make me go back, I’ll leave again.” I stood up and went closer to the door.
He put his pen down. His face had the goodness that I’d missed. “If neither of your parents reports you as missing, and you keep going to school, no one is going to come after you.”
“They’re not?”
“No.”
“How come you never told me that before?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it and tilted his head. Then he said, “I realize this sounds incredibly inadequate, but you never asked. And you can understand I can’t go around suggesting to students that they should leave home. Unless I know they’re really in danger.”
“Oh.” I stared at my hands, ashamed to have thought my problems were so bad.
“Come sit back down.”
I shook my head.
“I wish you’d trust me.”
Not if he was going to keep using words like “legally.” I felt for the handle and leaned against the door, my hand behind my back. “I know. It’s not like I get hit. I don’t get . . . touched. I don’t get threatened.”
“That’s . . . good. That’s good, Gem. I’m glad for that.”
“Me and Dixie have our own room. My mom works sometimes. Enough to pay the rent. We don’t always have food but I manage to eat.”
He looked confused.
“What I’m asking is . . . You said you weren’t supposed to tell me some things unless I was really in danger. What does it take to be really in danger?”
Mr. Bergstrom didn’t say anything for a long time. He sort of rubbed his mouth with his hand and took some deep breaths.
“Gem? Please come sit down.”
I didn’t move. He brought me his box of tissues. “Here.” I looked up. Was I crying? I touched my face. It was wet. I moved my hand off the door handle so that I could take a tissue.
“I don’t flunk classes,” I continued, my tears getting bigger, making it harder to talk. “I know I have problems in school and I know I’m antisocial, but I pull through every class.”
“You do.”
“I’m clean, I . . . I wash my clothes. I go to bed at bedtime and I wake up and come to school. And . . .” I pressed a tissue to my eyes and rocked forward. “I take care of my sister. For a long time I took care of her. I try.”
“You do,” he said, so kindly. “You try very hard.”
“But . . . what does it take to be in danger?” I asked again, through even more tears. “What does that even mean? Are things not bad enough? Should things be worse for me before . . . before I can make them better?”
I felt his hand on my arm, leading me back toward the chair. “No. No, they shouldn’t.” I sat down and he stood beside me, keeping his hand gently on my arm. “I’m sorry, Gem. I think I failed you.”
I cried more when he said that, big crying that came with relief, like all I’d wanted or needed this whole time was for someone to say they were sorry and mean it. To notice what had gone unnoticed my whole life, what had fallen through the cracks.
When I’d gotten my breath back, he said, “I have some ideas. Why don’t you give me some time alone here. Go to your classes and collect your homework assignments, get whatever you might need out of your locker. In case you need to take a few days off while we get you figured out.”
“How am I . . .”
“I’m going to help you. You being older makes it easier than it would be if, well, if you were Dixie. Does she—”
“She doesn’t want to leave.”
“Right.” He tapped his pen on the desk. “I think we can find some options. You know how I love to pull strings.”
I nodded, and blew my nose a few times.
“I will have to actually confirm some stuff with your mom. Just to avoid too much involvement from the system. Because the system sucks.”