“Still not going to tell me who it is?” I raise my eyebrows at her like I used to when I was small and I wanted a piece of candy or an extra cookie after dinner.

“Get!” She laughs, opening the front door and pointing down the driveway.

I sling my football bag over my shoulder and, with a quick smile back at Birdie, hustle down Rudy Street.

· two ·

ELIJAH

I walk myself to the bus station. It’s not as dramatic as it sounds, as we live only a few blocks away. Three blocks in the afternoon Houston steam with a black duffel bag slung over your shoulder, however, can feel like forty days in the jungle if you let your imagination get away from you.

The 2:45 bus to Corpus Christi isn’t completely full. I set my bag down on the seat beside me and put in my earbuds before we even leave the station. I watch people step onto the bus and make up stories about them in my head. It keeps me distracted enough to not think about my sister, Frankie, and my niece, Coley, for at least ten whole minutes.

Frankie wanted to walk with me. She wanted to bring Coley and wave from the station as the bus pulled away. I told her I think she’s watched too many Hallmark movies.

“Come on, Elijah,” Frankie begged. “Coley loves anything with wheels. She’ll love seeing the big buses.”

“I can do this on my own,” I told her. I left out the real reason I didn’t want her there with my niece: that I thought it would rip my heart out to see Coley waving at me from the platform as the bus pulls away. Maybe it’ll be only a few weeks until I see her again, but it will definitely be the longest I’ve been away from her since the day she was born.

It was bad enough that I had to say goodbye to her after lunch and before her nap. She was cranky and upset with me, her dark curls sticking up in seventeen different directions while she made a mess out of a bowl of macaroni and cheese. I tried to help her, tried to guide the spoon to her mouth, but she wasn’t having any of that.

“No, Uncalijah,” she whined, stretching out her name for me into a million syllables. “I do it myself.” The tears started about halfway through the bowl. We had spent the morning playing in the little splash park near our apartment, and I knew all that running around in the sun and heat was going to leave her happy but zonked. Even waiting ninety seconds for Frankie to nuke a bucket of Easy Mac and warm up a few green beans left her curled in a ball in the kitchen with crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks.