“A couple things,” he said. “I met a girl named Ramona, and she had this little silver bag, and it was full of pills of all colors, and they were so tiny, like fairy pills.”

He lay down on one of the beds and looked up at the ceiling fan. I sat on the edge of the bed, not touching him. Looked at his face. His lips were parted in an ecstatic expression, as if he were trying to take a sip of the night.

“Why don’t you like me?” I asked.

“I do,” he said. His eyes widened, seemed to snap into focus.

“But no more than you like anyone else.”

“What are you trying to say exactly?” He rose up on his elbows. “I feel like you’re giving me some mixed signals. I mean, what is it you want?”

What did I want? Well, what was the opposite of loneliness? Twin-ness. Could he give that to me? Could anyone?

“You made me dig up a dead baby,” Tuck said. His voice was thick and slurred. “That was a bad experience.”

He rolled over and closed his eyes, and I thought he was asleep. But a minute later he started talking again.

“I wanted to fuck you as soon as I met you!” he said. “I mean not when you were passed out, but basically ever since. You haven’t been very encouraging.”

“Well. I don’t think I want to just fuck. That’s not my end goal.”

“You wanted to fuck him.”

“That was more complicated.”

“Well, this doesn’t have to be complicated. You’re making it complicated.”

“You’re the one who’s twenty-one.”

“You don’t like me because I’m young?”

I sat on the bed beside him, watching him. I opened my mouth to answer, and then realized he really was asleep now, his mouth parted, breath shallow and noisy. I pushed the hair off his temples. I leaned over him, put my lips on his forehead, smelled his scent of trees and liquor and earth. I watched him sleep for a long time, and all the while I felt the shadow, that same film of despair I’d brought back from Colin’s grave. I felt it on me and on him. It was between us. I could almost see it, almost feel it like a second skin.

Chapter 26

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