Part 5 (1/2)

NO ONE KNOWS. PLEASE DON'T TELL.

Don't tell? That's what she's worried about? My eyes sting and my cheeks burn.

YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME. I HAD.

THE RIGHT TO KNOW. b.i.t.c.h. I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND. Then I remember.

The Sykes family doesn't keep friends.

But they do keep secrets. I'M SORRY. MY MOM WOULD HAVE WRECKED ME IF I TOLD YOU.

Probably literally. Doesn't make it right, though. One last question. WHY DID HE DO IT?

We go into a tunnel. On the other side, Elko comes into view, along with Cara's last message: WHO KNOWS?.

Elko Is A Mining Town And while the surrounding countryside is stunning, the town itself has seen better days. Parts of it are pretty. Others are shabby. Run-down. Battered by time and circ.u.mstance. Sort of like how I feel right now. We were up before dawn to hit the highway, but this soul-drooping weariness comes from some absurd sense of guilt. I didn't make Conner pick up that gun. But was there anything I might have done to stop him? Why didn't I see warning signs? Was any of his hopelessness because of me? Ridiculous, I know. He broke up with me. But I still don't know why.

Mom pulls into the Thunderbird Motel.

Checks us into a this-will-do kind of room.

”Why do we always stay here?

The Holiday Inn isn't too far away.”

She's busy hanging my dresses in a tiny closet. I don't know. Memories, I guess.

”Memories of what?” Pretty sure Patrick has never been here with her. ”Daddy?”

Mom pulls her head out of the dank cubicle. Weird, huh? We stayed here not too long after we met. Spent long days hiking Lamoille Canyon. Gorgeous up there... She loses herself in some recollection. Comes back again. Anyway, I'm starving. Let's get some lunch.

We've got a couple of hours to kill.

Lunch? Don't think so. ”I'm more tired than hungry. Think I'll take a nap. You go.”

Her Eyes Say The Words Her mouth refuses to-I'm worried about you. Why don't you eat? What she does say is, Are you sure? You have to be hungry. You didn't eat breakfast.

I never eat breakfast. But all that does is prove her unspoken point. ”I'm sure.

If I don't get some sleep, I'll look awful tonight.” To make her happy, I ask her to bring back a salad. Off she goes. I lie down on the plywood-and-cotton-lumps mattress.

Oh, Conner. How could you try to die?

And why didn't you? You hardly ever fail to get the things you really want. Did a switch flip inside your brain? If it did, I think what flipped it was that little boy who suddenly grew tired of being scared.

I've Only Known One other person who ended up in Aspen Springs. Tiffany took dance with me for three or four years. Rumor had it her stepdad liked her a little too much. She coped with his ”bad, bad touch” by binge-and-puking.

Bulimia is nasty. Hanging your head in the toilet after every meal? Sticking your fingers down your throat? All that stomach acid, carving holes in your esophagus? And even after all that, still wearing a size eight? Talk about a waste of energy. Real control is not putting in more than you can work off.

Knowing the exact count and keeping track.

Shaving off every extra caloric unit you can without pa.s.sing out. And the most important thing of all-keeping everyone else in the dark.

Sean

Everyone Else Seems to stumble through life. Fall. Get up. Go stumbling on again.

If they happen into a really good place, do they then make plans how to stay there?

I.

don't understand how people manage without a well-drawn game plan.

Don't they want some promise of success? Every good novel requires a considered plot.

Should a biography not demand as much? How do you function without structure?

I fail to comprehend.

Plotting Is important to me. How do I manage to reach Point B if I kick off from Point A? Logic, that's what it takes. I hate the illogical. And really despise when it actually pays off for somebody.

You know, right place, right time, whoopee, you win, without putting in one d.a.m.n lick of effort?

Bugs the s.h.i.+t out of me.

Especially considering my life has been mostly about wrong place, wrong time, too d.a.m.n bad for you. Lost my mom that way. Lost my dad that way.

Not going to lose Cara, too.

Which is why I've got a game plan. One I'm sticking to. When you've only got one little s.h.i.+mmer of suns.h.i.+ne, you capture it best you can. I will marry that girl one day. Not that I've asked her yet.

That page of our memoir isn't ready to be written.

Right now I'm working on the chapter that sends us to college together.

First things first, and I always prefer to write in chronological order.

Mostly because it's [chrono]

logical. I keep hearing that love isn't a logical emotion.

Should I worry about that?

It Does Worry Me Some Which is probably why, until Cara, I refused to give my heart away. I mean, I've never had to work to get a girlfriend. I have sampled more than a few yummy female delicacies. But they've all been appetizers.

Cara is a main course.