And it’s like something physical starts raining down on me. Shock and fear and sadness, pricking me like cold drops of water. Still dressed, I get under the covers and I start shivering, like when you have a fever, and I close my eyes and just try and breathe in and out, in and out. My body eventually slows down. But I feel heavy. I feel like I can’t move. I can’t even summon the energy to undress.
I start to doze, but my brain won’t let me fall asleep. I think about how happy I was just a few days ago, watching Alien with Sam, and then those moments when Sam passed me the little bottle of liquor, smiling. Before things got weird. I wish I could go back, and do things differently. Not just the other night, but years ago, that day, when I saw the man in the white truck and did nothing. But I know I can’t. And I feel that heaviness again, and the heaviness finally drags me under to sleep.
===
The next day, when I wake up, I see a note from Mom on the kitchen counter: She’s at work and Dad’s on campus, grading exams. I make some coffee and let it flow through me, waking me up. Somehow, I feel better. I feel okay. And then I realize it’s probably because I’ll see Sam soon, and maybe he won’t be so mad about everything. Maybe things will be okay after all. So I sit around and watch TV, waiting, feeling both hopeful and anxious.
Around noon, Mrs. Manderson’s car pulls up. I see Sam get out, carrying what must be the drawing, wrapped in brown paper. The car drives off, which surprises me. I thought this was just going to be a quick handoff. I open the door and greet him, the muscles in my body suddenly feeling rubbery.
“Hey,” he says. “Mom’s running a quick errand, but she’ll be back soon.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to sound casual.
He comes in and we settle on the couch in the family room. He’s holding the wrapped portrait against his chest and looking down. He’s barely made eye contact since I opened the door. I feel all of those heavy feelings from yesterday rushing back in. “I hope you like it,” he says. He unwraps it, but keeps it faced away from me. It’s in a frame. He stares at it, like he’s having second thoughts about parting with it. Then he slowly turns it around.
It’s under glass, in dark gray pencil, and yes, it looks like me. Seeing it, the tension in me loosens. In the portrait, I stare off to the side, the way I did in his backyard, and there’s a slight smile on my lips. The strands in my hair are ruffled as they would be after a long day, and my eyes—it’s almost like I’m looking at myself in a mirror. Sam has gotten me exactly right. “It’s so good,” I say.
“It’s okay if you don’t like it.”
“No, it’s . . . it’s great, it really is. It’s . . . like, I can’t believe you can do something like this. It looks just like me.”
“You sure it’s okay?” he says, looking at me now, but in a shy way, a slight hopeful smile on his face.
“Yeah,” I say, looking back at him, and I can see how stupid I’ve been. He doesn’t hate me. He’s my friend.
He needs me.
I look back at the drawing and stare at it for a bit, because as much as I wanted Sam to look at me, I feel shy, too, and I don’t know what to say to him now. The stuff from the other night—it’s still hanging in the air. I can’t talk about it, and I know he can’t either. So I focus on each detail of the drawing, each swerve of the pencil.
“Mom says I can take art classes, eventually,” Sam says, breaking the silence. “I mean, I basically taught myself.”
“Yeah, you told me that,” I say. “From the TV. While you were . . . in Anniston.” I look over at him, and he’s nodding gently.
“You can tell me stuff, too, you know,” he says. “Things about yourself.”
He looks serious. I know he means it. I can tell him things, if I want to. I can tell him I’m gay. He already knows it. And he’s giving me an opening, isn’t he? But there are still things he doesn’t know. About the white truck. And I realize that I want to get it out of me. It’s like the alien from the movie, waiting to burst through my chest.
“That day,” I say, then pause. I feel a little sick to my stomach, but I know I have to go on. “When I rode my bike back home, after I fell off. Well, a little bit later, he drove up next to me. That man. Russell Hunnicutt.”
Sam’s eyes flicker at the name, then narrow a little.
“He offered me a ride. But I didn’t get in. I guess he gave me the creeps. I rode off.” I’m speaking quickly, feeling the urgency to get it all out as fast as I can. “But then I looked back and saw that he was following me. I jumped off my bike and hid in someone’s backyard, in one of those houses along the road that goes to Pine Forest. I sat there and waited and he drove by slowly, like maybe he was searching for me. I stayed for a few minutes, then when I came back out his truck was gone. I rode home, fast, in case he came back.” When I stop, I take a deep breath because I feel like I just ran a sprint. But I’m not done. I’m about to tell the worst part. That I didn’t tell anyone about this. Not my parents. Not Beth. Not the police.
“I know about all that,” Sam says. “That first night, when he took me. Rusty told me.”
“What?” I say softly, because it still feels hard to breathe.
He swallows. “He told me that he’d wanted to get you. That you were his first choice. But that you got away. And then he drove back to Skyland. He knew I was still out there, alone. And he saw me. He saw me walking on the side of the road.” Sam looks toward the window.
My heart is pounding. It could have been me. It should have been me. The terror of Sam’s words slam into me like a blast of cold air.
But I have to go on.
“Sam,” I say, and I start shaking. “I never told anyone. I never told the police or my parents or Beth. I didn’t tell anyone about the white truck. About seeing him.”
His eyes dart back to me, face scrunching. “You didn’t? Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I say, wishing I felt even the slightest bit of relief. Instead, I feel sick. “I thought . . . I thought I was overreacting. Like maybe this man was just trying to help me, and he was an innocent guy and I’d just get him in trouble. Plus, I never got a look at the license plate or anything.”
A car horn blares. Mrs. Manderson.
“I have to go,” Sam says, spotting her car through the window.
“Please,” I say, though I don’t know what I mean. Please stay? Please forgive me?
He gets up and walks toward the door. I follow, and he turns back to me before going out.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I want to hug him or something, so that my body will warm up, so I’ll feel better, but I know he wouldn’t let me. He stands by the door, poised to leave, looking at me blankly.
“It’s okay, Josh,” he says. But the expression on his face says that it’s not okay, at all.
The car horn beeps again. He opens the door and leaves.
I go back to the couch and lie down. I stop shaking after a while. When I finally get up off the couch, I pick up the portrait resting on the coffee table and take it upstairs to my room. I hide it in my closet because I can’t bear to look at it anymore.
CHAPTER 11
Gone but Not Gone
Beth