“Got anything more interesting in there?” I asked as I slipped my hand into his bag and found his notebook. This time he didn’t fight—just watched as I flipped through pages of his black and white undercover superheroes. He lay back down and closed his eyes and soon he was asleep. I couldn’t help but notice his features soften, erasing all signs of Mean Daryl.

I lay beside him, on my back, listening to the sound of his breaths. He made a low rattling noise every few seconds that reminded me of my sister. Before I could prevent it, my eyes filled with tears and the trees whirled around me. My heart pounded angrily inside my chest and then I felt him slip his hand into mine. I held on to him because everything was spinning around me and I couldn’t help but be scared that I might suddenly disappear . . . and that no one would remember that I was ever there. I held on tightly and he squeezed back just as hard.

Maybe he was scared of the same thing.

When I woke, I felt disoriented.

“I want to go home.”

I brushed a leaf out of my hair. He didn’t answer. Just gathered his things and tossed them into his bag. We walked in silence and I felt unbalanced, like I had left behind part of me in the forest. When we reached the clearing, I could see the townhouses and I walked to my front door.

He followed without hesitation.

We went inside and, when I turned, his face was so close, his breath tickled my cheek. We stood seconds apart from touching, listening to the muffled voices of his mother and sister in the unit next door, but then something changed and he shook himself from me.

“Got any milk?” he asked and walked toward the refrigerator.

I reached into the dish rack and handed him a glass with a daisy painted on the side. My mother’s favorite.

He opened the freezer and cracked the ice tray. Ice cubes crashed onto the kitchen floor and shattered like glass. He rummaged in the refrigerator until he found the milk and, after he poured some into his glass, lifted the carton to his mouth and took a sip. I watched as he gulped, tilting his head back and closing his eyes, hearing the backwash hit the sides of the carton when he finished. He closed the refrigerator door, leaving the carton out on the table.

“C’mon.” He swirled the ice around in the glass and headed upstairs.