“Yeah.”

“Well, do you? Feel any different?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Not like I thought I would, anyway. It sort of feels like something is trying to gnaw its way out of my stomach. And I’m a little testy.”

Elliot lifted the blanket and scooted next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “I’m not going to be any help, but I think I’m supposed to be happy for you.”

“You’re being very mature and un-boy-like about this. I expected less compassion and more bumbling.” I grew light-headed from the warmth of his body and the feeling of his arm around me.

He exhaled a laugh into my hair. “I have a baby sister on the way, and a mom who insists it’s my job to show her the ropes, remember? So I need you to explain everything.”

I curled into his side, closing my eyes against the sting of tears I felt there.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

A weight settled heavily in my chest. “Not unless you can bring my mom back.”

Silence pulsed around us and I heard him inhaling in preparation a few times before speaking. Finally, he settled on a simple “I wish I could.”

I nodded against him, breathing in the sharp smell of his deodorant, the lingering smell of his boy-sweat, the wet-cotton smell of his T-shirt from the fifteen-foot run through the summer rain from his porch to mine. So weird that just hearing him say that made me feel a million times better.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered.

“No.”

His hand made the gentle path up and down my arm. I knew, without having to look too far and wide, that there were no other boys like Elliot, anywhere.

“I’m sorry you’re grumpy.”

“Me too.”

“Do you want me to get a warm water bottle? I do that for my mom.”

I shook my head. I wanted Mom to be here, reading her letter to me.

He cleared his throat, asking quietly, “Because it would make it feel like I’m your boyfriend?”

I swallowed, and the mood shifted in an instant. Boyfriend didn’t seem to cover it. Elliot was kind of my Everyfriend. “I guess?”

He sat up, still all skinny arms and long twisty legs, but he was becoming something new, something more . . . man than boy. At nearly fifteen, he had an Adam’s apple and faint stubble on his chin, and his pants were too short. His voice had deepened. “I guess we’re too young for that.”

I nodded and tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry. “Yeah.”

now

friday, october 6

Early-morning light filters in through the gauzy curtains, turning everything faintly blue. Outside on Elsie Street, garbage trucks rumble down the asphalt. The squealing of metal on metal, the crash of the bins against the truck, and the sound of garbage cascading into the compactor carries up from outside. Despite the way the world continues to move forward on the other side of the window, I’m not sure I’m ready to start the day.