“Are you, like, are you trying to hide from me?” I asked. “Is it because of what happened in Memphis? In the car?”

His face reddened, this crazy blush, and then he wouldn’t look at me. “It’s . . . I’m leaving. We’re leaving.” And his eyes got big for a second, like maybe he was scared I thought that he was including me, but I was still trying to figure out what was going on. “My mom and me . . . we’re going back to Memphis.”

“What? When?”

“Now. Well, tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving?”

“My dad called my mom last night,” Zeke said. “He told her what’s going on. He said I’m in danger of ruining my life. He says I could be arrested. He said I wouldn’t get to go to college, and I was going to tell him that I’m going to go to art school, but—”

“Zeke, please. You’re leaving? You’re just going back? To your dad? That fucking asshole? Your mom is going back.”

“She’s scared, Frankie. I’m scared. It’s scary. We could get arrested.”

“We already knew that, right? We already knew that and it was . . . it was fine.”

“They’re worried about me. My mom says that Coalfield is not safe. Another kid died, Frankie. Like, Jesus Christ, this is really bad.”

“Don’t go,” I said.

“I have to,” he replied.

“Please don’t leave,” I said, grabbing his arm.

“Frankie, I don’t have a choice, okay?” he said, and his voice cracked so hard, like puberty had just that moment kicked in for him. “I have to go home.”

“Please stay here,” I said. “Stay with your grandmother.”

“God, no, I can’t do that,” he said. “This is bad, Frankie. It was good when it was just you and me. It was the best thing ever. But it’s bad now. We did something awful.”

“That’s not true, and you don’t even fucking believe that,” I said, my voice rising. “You sound like you’re reading a dumbass letter of apology to a judge.”

“That kid died, Frankie. Like, we got him killed.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” I said. I did not want to rehash our responsibility as artists, did not want to keep explaining it away. I just wanted to be alive, to be in it, to keep doing it. And I needed Zeke. “I have all these posters. I have more of them back home. Let’s hang them up. I think if we keep doing it, it’ll keep going, and maybe it gets better. Maybe it turns into something else.”

“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’ll write to you, though. Letters? I’ll write when this is all over. And then . . . you know, you can come see me in Memphis.”