Chapter 54

“Would you rather go live with Monica and her parents?” Jacky asked later that night.

They’d both been drained after dealing with Mrs. Johnston, and by the time Mrs. Jennings arrived home, Ryan and Jacky had taken a nap together and woken up a little more refreshed. Jacky figured it was probably lack of sleep that had led him to the incident earlier. (“Do you really think I assaulted her? Do you think she’ll get a lawyer?” Jacky had worried. Ryan’s response: “You didn’t hurt her. And she kind of deserved it.”)

Mrs. Jennings had rented a movie from Red Box, some new romantic comedy she didn’t think the boys would be interested in watching. Yet both of them sat on the couch under an afghan while Mrs. Jennings drank her wine and smiled at them when she didn’t think they were looking.

Now they were both in Jacky’s bed, sharing again, and Jacky found that he couldn’t sleep.

“I don’t know,” Ryan whispered. His breath tickled on the back of Jacky’s neck.

“How come you decided to go to a group home instead of what Mrs. Johnston said? Getting emancipated?”

Ryan sighed, and Jacky felt his forehead lean into the back of his neck. His voice, when he spoke, was muffled. “I thought about it. There’s no job I could get, as a high school student, that would be enough hours or enough money to pay for an apartment and all the bills and everything that goes along with that. Not if I still wanted to graduate with a decent GPA.” Ryan sighed again. “Allison and I went over all that. All the details of what it would take. And I didn’t know which of my friends would actually want me living there. I knew the Johnstons would, but then… would they be like Monica used to be, trying to force us back into a relationship? I didn’t want it to be like that. I didn’t want to do that to her. And… no matter what people say, I don’t want to burden anybody. Me living somewhere, their parents would have to buy extra groceries, and maybe they’d have to give me money for clothes or to go out or whatever. Unless I got a job. I was just…” Ryan’s chest hitched against Jacky’s back. “I was hoping she could hang on until I wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

Jacky ran his hand along the soft hair on Ryan’s forearms. “I wish things could have been different, too.”

Then suddenly it was four o’clock on Saturday afternoon and Ryan had no idea how it had happened.

The morning had been a blur. Laundry. A trip back to his house to get his suit, which hadn’t been as emotional as he had expected. Later, collapsing in the shower, with the running water washing away his tears, and emerging with all evidence of that erased.

The ride to the church had seemed like he was shuttling through space. The blur of passing trees and buildings was only interrupted by the feel of Jacky’s clammy hand gripped tight around his. Then he was there, at his mother’s funeral, and he blanked out. Just as well. The wooden box at the front of the church didn’t look like anything, most certainly not something his mother would be lying inside. It was just a box. The blown-up photograph on top of the coffin was just a photograph, one he’d seen a thousand times. It had been taken at his eighth grade graduation. Ryan had been cropped out.

He knew he was expected to sit in the front pew. His hands were empty; Jacky had let go as they got out of the car. Now Lance was there at his side. Ryan hadn’t realized what a good friend Lance was. Ryan also hadn’t realized that without Lance on his one side, and Jacky on his other, that he would have been alone in that front pew. No relatives, and though his mother had many friends and coworkers, none knew Ryan well enough to assume that they should be one to stand up there. Monica and her parents sat in the other front pew, on the other side of the aisle. Ryan didn’t look at her. Alison sat near the back of the church. Ryan didn’t look at her either.

He sat there, a husk of himself, the words of the pastor blowing past his ears, and afterwards, everyone shaking his hand or hugging him and saying they were so sorry for his loss, and he nodded and thanked and hugged, and now it was four o’clock and Allison was there and she was asking him if he was ready.

No, he was not.