Stay (ARC)

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

turkey. And whether to bring some kind of trash bag for

  the orange and banana peels, so they wouldn’t just sit

  around on the tablecloth and look nasty.

  I knew it was stupid, and a waste of my time. But the

  details wouldn’t let me go. So I just lay there, wishing I

  could think about something else.

  Then, a minute later, I got my wish.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  My mom rapped on the door to my room.

  “Someone here to see you, Lucas,” she said through

  the door.

  I flew off the bed. I swear I don’t even know how I

  made that move, and I never could’ve made it again. It

  was something like levitating.

  I threw the door open. It seemed to startle her.

  “Is it Libby?” I asked, my voice sounding out of breath.

  “No, it’s Mrs. Barnes.”

  “Mrs. Barnes?”

  “Yeah. You know. Connor’s mom?”

  I know who Mrs. Barnes is, I thought.

  I just had no idea why she would be here to see me.

  Then, as I was flying down the stairs, I started to be

  able to think of some possible reasons. And, oh, they

  were not good.

  It was all my fault. I had that in my head already.

  Something had happened to Connor. He had done

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  something terrible. And it was all because I hadn’t been

  a good enough friend to him. Mrs. Dinsmore had tried

  to tell me to be a good friend to him. And I’d gone and

  fallen down on the job.

  I should’ve gone to see him the minute I found

  out I had a date with Libby Weller. Told him the big

  news. I should have gone straight to his house this morn-

  ing to tell him all the details of how it had gone.

  And now I could never change it. And I would have

  to live with it all my life.

  Now I was about to find out how it felt to be Zoe

  Dinsmore.

  I stepped into the living room and looked at Connor’s

  mom, and she looked back at me. She seemed concerned.

  Her lips were drawn into a tight line. But she was not

  crying. She didn’t look as though her whole world had

  come to an end.

  “Is Connor okay?” I asked, wondering why it was so

  hard for me to manage my own breath all of a sudden.

  “Why, yes,” she said. “He’s fine.”

  I just stood a minute, letting all the awful thoughts

  rush out of me. When they had gone, I was left with just

  one new thought.

  I have another chance and I’m not going to blow it this time.

  My mom stepped into the room behind me and in-

  vited Mrs. Barnes to sit down. I sat on the couch, and

  Connor’s mom perched next to me, holding her purse

  tightly in her lap.

  “I want to ask you a question,” Mrs. Barnes said. “And

  it’s very important that you give me an honest answer.”

  So already I was in a minefield. Because you never

  want to be in a position to have to give truthful answers to your best friend’s mom. There are sacred trusts involved.

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  “What is it, ma’am? What do you need to know?”

  She sighed. Leaned back ever so slightly. I could hear

  my mom in the kitchen putting a kettle of water on the

  stove. Probably so she could offer our guest a cup of tea.

  “I think you probably know by now that Connor’s

  father has left our house.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, staring carefully at the carpet.

  “This morning he came by to get the rest of his things.

  But one of his belongings is missing. Do you know the

  belonging I’m referring to?”

  “No, ma’am. I have no idea.”

  “It’s the kind of belonging you wouldn’t want falling

  into the hands of young boys.”

  I was beginning to get a deeply sinking feeling in my

  gut. I thought the “belonging” in question might have

  something to do with relations between married people,

  though I couldn’t imagine what kind of “belonging” that

  would be. I thought “belonging” was a strange word to

  use when you could just say “thing.”

  I wasn’t answering. So she went on.

  “I can definitely see how it would hold a fascination.

  But maybe you boys don’t know how terribly dangerous

  an item like that can be. One of you could be hurt playing

  with a thing like that. Or even killed. Or a total stranger, a passerby, could be wounded. And I just know you wouldn’t

  want to have something like that on your conscience.”

  Speaking of fascinations, I had grown fascinated with

  a tiny spot on the Persian carpet, where one bit of nap

  seemed to have been forced in the wrong direction, alter-

  ing the pattern. I couldn’t have looked at Mrs. Barnes if

  you’d paid me good money to do it.

  “With all due respect, ma’am,” I said, “I haven’t got

  the slightest idea what you’re asking me about.”

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  “Then why won’t you look at me?”

  Oddly, I felt a little flash of anger at her. Mrs. Barnes,

  of all people? Acting like she didn’t know why it was hard

  to look somebody in the eye?

  “I think because you’re scaring me with this. Can’t you

  just tell me what this thing is that you think we took?”

  A long silence. I could feel how much she didn’t want

  to say.

  I looked up to see my mom leaning in the doorway.

  Listening to all that silence.

  “Connor’s father…,” Mrs. Barnes began, and it startled

  me, “…kept a firearm in the house. For the purpose of

  home protection. I’m sure you understand.”

  I didn’t. I looked up at her. Just like she’d been want-

  ing me to. I think I was blinking too much.

  “A firearm?”

  “A gun,” my mother said.

  “Oh. A gun.” I’d known what a firearm was. It just

  took time to absorb.

  “Did you and Connor take the gun, Lucas?” Mrs.

  Barnes asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Do you have any idea where it is? Did you ever see

  Connor with it?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You better be telling the truth, Lucas,” my mother

  said. “Because this is a pretty serious situation.”

  “I swear. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles if you want me

  to. I swear on Grandma’s grave. I had no idea there was

  a gun in Connor’s house. I never saw it. I never heard

  about it. This is all news to me.”

  I sat still a minute, feeling all four of their eyes burn-

  ing into me. Then the feeling in the room seemed to

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  lighten a tiny bit. As if they believed me, or some wild

  outcome like that.

  “Hmm,” Mrs. Barnes said. “Well, all I know is, it

  didn’t walk away on its own.”

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  “Of course I did. He denied taking it.”

  I was wondering if she went into his room and looked.

  But before I could wonder long, she answered my ques-

  tion. It felt as though sh
e could read my mind.

  “I spent an hour searching his room, but I never found

  it. But it has to be somewhere.”

  I thought about Connor telling me his mother had

  insisted he go out and lie in the sun. It made more sense

  in light of this new information.

  “I agree it has to be somewhere, ma’am, but I swear,

  if Connor took it, he kept it as much a secret from me

  as from you.”

  It was a strange thing to say, I thought, as I listened

  to the echo of it. Because I’d accidentally let on that I did think it was possible Connor had taken it.

  “Let me ask you another question, then, Lucas. Are

  you at all concerned about Connor?”

  “Concerned, ma’am?”

  “Has he been seeming down to you?”

  “Down? Well … maybe. Maybe some, yeah. But I guess

  in some ways he’s always seemed a little down to me.”

  “And you don’t think it’s gotten worse lately?”

  “I don’t know what to say about that, ma’am. I don’t

  know. Maybe. But then sometimes I think I’m not a very

  good judge.”

  “Well, I thank you for your honesty, Lucas.” She

  stood, and straightened out her skirt. Fiddled with her

  belt for a second. “You’ve been such a good friend to my

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  son. I believe you, what you say. I’ll just go leave you to

  your day.”

  My mother said, “Won’t you stay and have a cup of

  tea, Pauline?”

  But Connor’s mom said, “No. No, thank you, Ellie.

  I don’t want to leave my boy alone too long.”

  And with that, my mother saw her to the door.

  Part of me was so happy to have the ordeal be over.

  But another part of me said it wasn’t over and I knew it.

  It was my job to be a good friend to Connor. And I had

  withheld a piece of important information. And I had a

  sudden bad feeling that too much withholding could be

  the end of my friend.

  My mother walked upstairs, and I sprinted to the door.

  Slipped out of the house.

  I caught up to Mrs. Barnes from behind as she walked

  down the street. It seemed to alarm her. At least until she

  saw it was only me.

  “One more thing I have to tell you,” I said.

  We stopped, and she turned to face me on the sidewalk.

  And she wouldn’t look at me. The old Mrs. Barnes had

  returned. She had screwed up her courage to come into

  my house and be a new and improved Pauline Barnes, but

  now that was over. Whatever she had gathered together,

  she’d run out of it by then.

  Either that or she had some idea what I was going to say.

  “You asked me if I was concerned about him. He did

  say something that worried me. But I’d really appreci-

  ate it if I didn’t have to say word for word what it was.

  Because there’s an honor with guys. He tells me things

  he wouldn’t tell anybody else, and I’m supposed to keep

  it to myself. That’s what best friends do, right? But I have been worried about him lately. So if you were thinking

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  it was a good idea to get him some kind of help or keep

  an extra-close eye on him, well … I guess I’d say I think

  that’s a good idea, too.”

  She smiled the saddest smile I’d ever seen in my days.

  The saddest I’ve seen even up until now. She reached out

  and held one warm hand to my cheek.

  Then, without a word, she walked away.

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  CHAPTER TEN

  Pebbles and Contempt

  I didn’t sleep well.

  It had been all I could do to stop myself from going

  over to Connor’s, and I mean right up until bedtime.

  But I knew his mom would’ve been the one to let me

  in. And she would’ve immediately known that I’d come

  to tell him what she’d done—coming to my house, and

  all. Telling me everything she’d told me.

  So I just stayed home and let it ruin my sleep.

  I dozed off at about three a.m. and popped awake an

  hour later. I tossed and turned for what felt like a long

  time, then got up and got dressed without turning on

  any lights.

  I slipped out of the house and walked over to Connor’s

  without a flashlight. There was a moon, and that helped.

  But mostly it was just a walk I could have done in my

  sleep. That is, if I could have gotten any sleep.

  I slipped across his front yard, cutting over the grass.

  His next-door neighbor’s big German shepherd, Ajax,

  heard me and barked a few times. But Ajax barked at

  everything, so I didn’t figure he’d draw much attention.

  There was a ring of gravel around a little seedling

  apple tree near the front stoop. I picked up a couple of

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  the smallest pebbles I could find, working almost entirely

  by feel.

  Then I positioned myself under Connor’s window and

  bounced three pebbles off the window frame. I purposely

  avoided the glass, because maybe even a small pebble could

  break a window if you threw it hard enough. Fortunately

  I was a pretty good shot.

  He came to the window and stared down at me, and

  I stared up at him. It was too dark to see the expressions

  on each other’s faces, but the way he just froze there with

  his hands on the glass seemed to be a thing that spoke

  loudly enough.

  Then he disappeared again.

  I stood still for a minute or two, feeling stupid. Not

  knowing if I was waiting for anything or not. If he planned

  to come down, or if he’d just thought, “The hell with

  Lucas,” and gone back to bed.

  Then I heard Ajax barking again. A movement caught

  my eye, and I looked over to see Connor standing in his

  driveway in the dark, his old threadbare blue robe tied

  over his pajamas. He tossed his head toward the backyard

  and we walked down the driveway together.

  We pulled two webbed chairs off the back patio and sat

  next to each other in the grass. Still without saying a word.

  I had my head dropped back, staring up at the sky.

  Man, there were a lot of stars! This was back before the

  town had much outdoor lighting to pollute the dark sky

  at night. I saw more stars than I might’ve thought exist-

  ed for me to see. I saw the Big Dipper, Ursa Major and

  Minor, Cassiopeia. I heard crickets for the first time,

  even though they’d probably been playing their strange

  music all along.

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  “Sorry to wake you up,” I said. Barely over a whisper.

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” he said.

  “Got it. Guess there’s a lot of that going around.”

  Another minute of silent stargazing. Then I figured

  I’d better get it off my chest, what I’d come to say. Sooner or later I had to.

  “Your mom came by to talk to me yesterday.”

  I didn’t look over at him. But from the corner of my

  eye I saw him drop his face into his hands. I waited. Then

  he rubbed his face briskly and t
urned his head toward

  me. Like he wanted to look at me. But it was a little too

  dark for that.

  “So that’s where she went,” he whispered.

  “Yeah. That’s where she went.”

  “I didn’t take the damn gun.”

  I let out a long breath that I must have been holding.

  “Well, I’m awful glad to hear it. Because that would

  be a pretty scary thing, you know.”

  “What do you think I’m going to do?”

  “Well, after that time you said—”

  “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t even bring that up again.”

  We gazed at the sky for a minute more. Or, anyway,

  I did. I didn’t look over at him. I have no idea what he

  was looking at.

  “So here’s the thing,” I said after a time. “Here’s the

  way it’s going to be. I’m just sort of … here now. I’m just here with you. If I can’t get you to go places with me,

  I’ll just sort of be here.”

  “Twenty-four hours a day?”

  “Not sure yet. I don’t have the thing all worked out

  in my head.”

  “What if I don’t want you here that much?”

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  “Not really sure you get a vote,” I said. I was half

  kidding. I think that came through in my voice. But

  only half kidding.

  Silence while he digested that.

  “What about running?” he asked.

  “Not going to run on an hour’s sleep anyway.”

  “What about tomorrow’s running?”

  “I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

  “What about your girlfriend?”

  Yeah, I thought. What about her? What about calling and inviting her out to eat, then surprising her with a picnic because it’s more romantic? What about that?

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. Then I stopped, and sighed.

  Because I was letting some pretty important things slip

  away. Slide out of me. “We’ve been friends since we

  were three.”

  “I know it.”

  “I just think that counts for something.”

  “More than a girlfriend?”

  “If you’re in any kind of trouble … then … yeah. I’m

  putting you first. And there’s not a whole hell of a lot you can do about it.”

  We sat there together until the sun came up. Without

  ever saying another word.

  * * *

  It was about three thirty in the afternoon. We were

  upstairs in his room, playing cards. We were on some-

  thing upwards of our hundredth game. I’m not exag-

  gerating. I had won about sixty, and he’d won maybe

  fifty or more.

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