Charlie swore. “I gotta let Mom know you’re home.” Even though Mrs. Melcher was standing in her front yard with her fluffy dog, Barron, and I was in my boxers, shivering, I waited while Charlie called her. “Yeah, Mom? He’s home. I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay, hold on.” He shoved the phone at me.
I shook my head and backed away. I couldn’t deal with Mom until I’d had coffee and a shower; I needed time to figure out what to tell her. She couldn’t handle the truth, but I didn’t know what lie I could conjure up that would satisfy her rage. No matter what I said, I was in for it when she got ahold of me.
Charlie curled his lip like he wanted to punch me. “Yeah, Mom . . . he’s going to take a shower. He’s fine. Okay . . . okay . . . I’ll tell him.” Charlie tossed the phone into the Jeep. “Mom wants you home right after school.”
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“Don’t thank me.” Charlie frowned at me with disgust. Growing up, he’d called me a botched abortion, shit stain, fucktard, faggot, asshat, dipshit, and Henrietta. But in all our years together he’d never looked at me like he was ashamed to be my brother. “Where the fuck were you, Henry?”
“Nowhere.”
Charlie shoved me with so much force that I stumbled backward and fell onto the lawn. I threw my hands behind me as I fell, and landed on my ass. Dew soaked my boxers, grass stained my palms. I scrambled to my feet. “What the hell, Charlie?”
“You’ve been gone for days—days, Henry—and ‘nowhere’ is all you can say? Mom thought you were beat up again, or worse!”
I had a pretty good idea what worse meant. When I found out that Jesse had hanged himself in his bedroom, I overheard my mom tell Nana that she couldn’t imagine anything worse than finding her son’s dead body, but I knew that wasn’t true. Worse would be never finding me, never knowing what had happened, but I wouldn’t have done that. Not to her, not to anyone.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
Charlie shook his head. He could barely look at me. “No shit.”
“What’s wrong with the Jeep?” I asked, unsure what else to say.
“Nothing.”
“Then why aren’t you in bed?”
Charlie sneered. “If you think any of us could sleep not knowing whether you were dead or alive, then you don’t know dick about this family.”
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I walked into Faraci’s class, rubbing my head to try to ease the persistent pounding in my temples. Not even ten minutes brushing my teeth had been enough to scrub the sticky film from my mouth, and if I took any more aspirin, I’d probably start leaking blood from every orifice.
Relief flooded Audrey’s face when she saw me, and she started babbling the moment I sat down. “Your mom came to my house, looking for you. Did you talk to her? Are you all right? I told her you were probably fine, but she said you hadn’t come home in a couple of days and I hadn’t heard from you and you weren’t answering your phone. She was really worried.”
My eyeballs throbbed, and it hurt to smile, but I forced one for Audrey. “I’m good. She knows I’m okay.”
“Thank God.”
“Thanksgiving was kind of a mess at my house, and I lost my phone.” I hoped if I were vague, she’d drop it, but Audrey was tenacious.
“Diego called me, freaking out. He told me what happened, and he was scared he’d messed things up, but I thought maybe you’d . . . Jesus, Henry, I was worried sick.” She glanced around the room, but we were the only people in it other than Ms. Faraci, whose head was cocked to the side slightly. She appeared to be grading papers, but her pen hadn’t moved since I’d walked into class.
My cheeks burned as I wondered how much Diego had told Audrey. “I’m not going to hurt myself, Audrey. Everything’s just complicated.”
“You can’t disappear like that.”
“It’s not like the sluggers gave me a choice.”
Audrey fell silent while I stewed. I was tired of apologizing for things that were beyond my control. I didn’t ask to be abducted. I didn’t ask for Diego to kiss me. I didn’t deserve any of it. I only wanted to lie low until the end of the world.
“Diego really likes you, Henry. I knew he liked you.”
“Aren’t you smart?” A mob of students entered the classroom as the warning bell rang, and Marcus was among them. I tried to shush Audrey, but she wasn’t listening.
“Have you talked to him yet? He went crazy when you disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Marcus stood over my desk, flanked by Adrian and Jay. “Abducted again, Space Boy?” His red-rimmed eyes held no laughter. They were hollow. He was hollow.
I tried to ignore him, but Audrey snapped. “Thank God aliens never abducted you, Marcus. I’d hate for you to represent our entire fucking species.”
“Is there a problem?” Ms. Faraci asked from the front of the room.
“Did you hear what she said to me?”
Ms. Faraci glanced from me to Audrey to Marcus and offered a shrug. “I did not, Mr. McCoy. But if I hear you call anyone Space Boy again, you’ll find yourself in Saturday detentions for the remainder of the year.”
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