I lead the way out without saying anything.
Jackson follows me down the staircase, and I don’t know if he can sense my shift in attitude, but I need to get my act together before that final step so I don’t take it out on him—again. I hate that word right now, and probably always will, since it’s been tagged with this very moment of betrayal and disappointment; this kind of haunting is why people have to watch what they say and what they do. I hit the last step and am still carrying this ugliness on me, and I can’t shake it off of me any more than I can shake off my grief or shame. I’m like a coin constantly flipping—heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails—like someone tossed me into the air to settle something once and for all but didn’t catch me, and now I’m falling into an abyss, unable to see what will come up when I land.
I hide my hand in my jacket pocket. I scratch my palm in peace.
I’m tempted to take Jackson down my usual route to your house, but it’ll stir too many memories.
“Let’s pop a left,” I say, turning away from the supermarket and car rental place at the last second. “You have friends in New York, right?”
“Sort of. My pals Anika and Veronika are studying theater at NYU. We went to high school together back home, but it’s one of those friendships where distance ruins everything.” Jackson shrugs. “I miss them, but I can see online they’re doing just fine without me.”
“How close were you three?”
“We’ve been tight since freshman year. It was the first meeting for the Dungeons & Dragons club and we wanted to join, but I could tell they were as hesitant as I was about what that would mean for our high school status. I don’t know, we were being fourteen, I guess.”
So: Jackson is one of those eighteen-year-olds who speaks about being fourteen like it was ten lifetimes ago. I bet you found that charming.
“By junior year we got over all that nonsense, but since Anika’s ex-boyfriend was in the Dungeons & Dragons club, we formed our own after-school club at Anika’s house and made up our own game, Cages & Chimaeras. Theo even . . .”
You what?
“Theo what?” I ask out loud.
“Theo got to play the game with Anika and Veronika in February when we were here.”
I didn’t know this. I wanted to hang out with you, of course, but there’s no way I was willing to suffer through watching you hold Jackson’s hand or laugh at his jokes. I nod politely, which Jackson completely misses because he’s not looking at me.
“Why don’t you reach out while you’re here?” I ask.
“Anika and Veronika are both home for Thanksgiving. I think they’re coming back the day I leave, which sucks. They wanted to Skype chat, but . . .” He shuts himself up again. I’m ready to challenge him again to tell me more, but he stops. We’re in front of the window of Game Express—my favorite video game store. You have to admit that even though you were always more of a GameStop loyalist, Game Express never let you down, because of the discounts. “Are you cool with going in here for a minute or two?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
I can find you in there.
The warmth inside feels good. I don’t recognize the young woman behind the counter, and I would definitely remember someone with blue-streaked hair and yellow contacts: a demon vibe. It’s really cool. But I shouldn’t be surprised about new faces. I haven’t been here since earlier this summer, and even that visit wasn’t for very long.
“They have a lot of Game Boy stuff,” Jackson muses. He picks up a couple of bargain games from a bucket, dropping them back in a second later.
“Yeah, it’s great.”
There’s nothing I want to buy, so I just follow Jackson around as he tours the store—my favorite, not yours—for the first time. At least I think he’s never been here before. I don’t know why you would’ve walked with Jackson over here in the winter unless you were trying to bump into me and mess with my head or make me miss you more. Let me shut up or you’ll think I’m back to my old paranoid self. I swear I’ve improved. I swear I have a better grip on reality these days.
Jackson spends a lot of time with the Xbox games. He checks out a racing game, a fighting game, and a spy game before moving on.
I stop him. “Anything else here catching your eye?”
“Not really.”
“I was counting the games you looked at and you stopped at three . . .”
“Okay.” He’s confused.
“I have this thing with numbers. I prefer things to be done in evens.”