He’s in one of the Sunday school classrooms, sitting on the teacher’s desk and reading an illustrated kids’ Bible. We didn’t have those in New Nazareth. Kids don’t need to be able to understand the scripture. Nobody’s asking them to understand, just obey. He’s pilfered clothes from the donation pile, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him in something that isn’t Angel whites. Bulky shorts that cut off at an unflattering place near the knees, which, same. A plain T-shirt that’s a little too big on him. And his hair has grown out since he was torn from the death squads, finally long enough that a pale, little curl falls over his forehead.

My stomach turns. I want to kiss him. I want to be sick. I want to hold his jaw in my hands and feel his body heat against my skin. I want to pretend he never hurt me, that everything is fine, that this is something we can move forward from. I’m scared; I don’t want him to put a single hand on me, I don’t want him to exhale in my direction; I want to wrap my arms around him and stay there forever.

I want things to be how they used to be. It would be so much easier that way.

Why does this have to be so hard?

“Oh,” Theo says, because he’s looking at me. Really looking at me. He has the time to take it all in.

He slides off the desk, and I think he’s about to rush to me and wrap me up in a hug, the way people used to do in old movies. But he stops halfway. Teetering. Not exactly sure what to do with me. He’s got that confused look in his eyes, fumbling between wanting to touch me and wanting to back away. One mistake, and we’re back to the beginning of our relationship: kids who were thrown together and just don’t know what to do with themselves.

“Um.” I hold out the backpack. I want this thing away from me. “I brought some stuff.” I stole some stuff. “Thought you might be hungry.”

He takes it like a starved dog takes meat from an outstretched hand. “Thanks. You look…”

“Like hell,” I finish for him.

“No. Just different.” He gestures at the back of his neck. “You cut your hair.”

Instinctively, I touch where my braid used to be. My head felt so light when Dad cut it all away, as if he’d taken off some terrible thing that’d been dragging me down for years. Which was true, in a way.

Theo says, “You actually look like a boy.”