Now here it was, and there’d be no keening and moaning, or throwing myself about. The reality was too stark, too . . . actual. As flat and featureless as a beach at low tide. My fantasy theatrics had been all about me. This emptiness, this paralysis, was about Rubio, and how terribly, completely he was gone.

So much we would never know about each other.

I never got to tell him my real name . . .

Oh, where was that blessed numbness I used to wrap myself in so easily?

Hours or days later, someone lowered themselves against the wall beside me, close enough to feel the warmth.

“Go away, whoever you are. Leave me alone!”

“Nope. Not this time.”

Daniel. Had there always been this huskiness in his voice or was he finally showing the toll this day had taken from him?

“Not you,” I moaned. “Can’t deal with you right now.”

He shifted, getting comfortable. “Then I’ll just sit here till you can.”

Easy enough to lean on him, but so many reasons not to. I buried my head deeper in my arms.

He went quiet for a long time. Then he said, “I’d like to help.”

“He’s dead!”

“Yes.”

“You can’t fix that!”

“No, I can’t.”

“He was my best friend! Like . . . my only family!”

“I know.”

If he finished with ‘just how you feel,’ I’d jump up screaming. Maybe throw myself into the Lagoon. No, that was more dumb theatrics. Besides, Daniel did know how it felt to lose someone you love.

“I made a mess of calls when I heard. Tried to find the right drugs. Nothing out there.”

I should be grateful for the effort. Instead, I was furious with him, for being alive when Rubio was not, for his damnable equanimity, and because when Daniel went away, it would be by choice, not a tragic accident. He still got to choose.

“Why are you even here?”

“Support? Comfort? That sort of thing?”

“I mean, why are you . . . still . . . here?”

“To be with you.”

“With that big storm coming?” My mouth tasted sour as my words. “Aren’t you Nathans rushing to get out of town?”

I felt him shove his head back against the wall, thumping it a few times in frustration. “Ah. Hannah.”

“She hates me, and still she tells me more than you do. Least now I know where the arrows came from.”

“What’d she say?”

“She took the papers back.”

“Papers?”

“You know. ID, permits, passes, tickets. Scraps of fucking paper! Come on, Daniel. Don’t play me like a total idiot!”

“I haven’t . . . I . . .”

“Yes, you have! You and Hannah and . . . well, no. Julian’s been pretty straight with me.”