I went back up the roof when I’d cooled down. Jaden didn’t ask about the slamming or the shattering, I think he knows me better than that by now. Anyway, I’d cleaned up the glass with his broom.

We waited there for hours. The stillness I’d felt that morning when the sun shone off the water was long gone. I was cold and I was hungry, and I felt unsure that the boat we’d seen or any other one would come our way any time soon.

As if echoing my thoughts, Jaden said, “What if they don’t come back at all?”

“We can’t think like that,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go inside and eat.”

“What if we miss the boat?” he asked.

“They know we’re here,” I said.

Daylight savings time had happened the week before, so the sun was long since down. My boots still hadn’t dried, and it was getting colder and colder.

Back inside, I found some packages of ramen in the box next to the cooler and opened them up. I boiled as little water as I could get away with boiling and let the noodles sink in. They lost their square shape quickly. After they’d boiled for a minute, I opened the powder packet and dumped that in, too. My stomach was growling like a stray dog. I stopped and listened to the sound of it, and, as I did, I became aware of another sound. For a minute I couldn’t place it, and then I realized that the soft little slap slap slaps I was hearing was the water lapping up against the walls outside.

Jaden and I ate sitting on the couch. After we’d both finished, he put his bowl down and looked over at me.

“They’re not coming back tonight,” he said. “The sun’s gone down. They’re probably at the emergency shelter, and not leaving until the sun comes back up.”

I let that sink in. We had to get through another night here, in the dark, in the cold. I felt a sudden rush of gratitude wash over me that Jaden had called me, had brought me here to stay with him.

“What should we do since we have all this time?” I asked, trying to keep the trembling out of my voice. “My Mixplayer still has charge. If your screen’s charged, we could hook it up and watch something. Or listen to something.”

“Do you feel like we did the right thing sending that boat away?” Jaden asked me.

“What?”

“Did we make a mistake?”

“I don’t think so, Jaden,” I said.

He sat back on the couch. There was silence for a moment, then he said, “What’s the worst mistake you ever made in your life?” He was back to his questions.

“Once I held a door open for a goodbreed,” I joked. “Didn’t know until she got close and I saw her designer everything. By then it was too late.”