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“I felt the first thing in a long time when they let Comstock get away with it,” I say. Jack’s head drops, a groan escaping, trailed by the fog of his breath.

“You were just a freshman,” he says.

“The only thing stopping us is ourselves,” I say, and he covers his face with his hands. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but it’s been said and can’t be taken back. Like so many other things.

So I tell him.

I tell Jack about Comstock’s drunkenness and the baseball bat, the metallic ring of metal against skull, and how he slid to the ground like a bag of water. I talk about my strength as I lifted him onto the chair, the hammer and the nails, the sucking sound of his lung trying to re-inflate, the flow of everything I needed being provided to me in the moment. The easiness of it all convincing me that everything was as it should be.

I tell him and he listens, his head still in his hands as the frogs begin to sing around us as they grow accustomed to my voice. I go on.

“I was a scar, inside and out. Claire came along and started picking at the edges, her fingers finding a way to open me a little. And then you. You tore me apart and now I’m a fresh wound, open to the air and the infection all around me. Everything gets in and everything hurts. I’m this raw, bleeding thing feeling everything for the first time, the joy and the pain. When Sara called Claire that night at the church—”

His fingers are on my lips. “Stop.”

“I thought you should know,” I say.

“I do know. I know and I’m still here, right next to you.”

I’m crying and so is he, the heat from our faces evaporating into the night. I fall into him and we just hold each other, arms wrapped so tightly I don’t know where he ends and I begin and it doesn’t matter anyway. We pull apart and he puts his hands on either side of my face, tears sliding away under his thumbs.

“Can you stop?” he asks.

I don’t know. I’ve wondered myself, had so many moments when the words were in my mouth, the necessary sounds to both damn and save me unable to find their way out under the grim stare of my mother.

“I don’t know,” I tell him.

“Can you try? For me?”

“Yes,” I say, and his eyes catch all the light of the moon as he smiles.

“We can do this,” he says, hands dropping to mine to squeeze tight. “I’ve got a good scholarship to Hancock. Come with me. You’ve got the grades. Pay the late application fee and just fucking leave. We’ll go together, get you some help.”

His hands leave mine to spin in the air, helping to weave this tale of hope and the future. Something that might actually happen now that this weight is not on my heart, every beat a struggle.

“Yes,” I say.

“Maybe we can get an apartment, live off campus,” he goes on, now that I’ve confirmed this daydream could become a reality. “I don’t have a lot of money but I’ll get a job, do whatever it takes.”

“We’ll get a dog,” I say.

“An Irish wolfhound,” he says emphatically.

And I’m laughing. Laughing at his optimism, his absolute conviction that everything is going to be okay.

But maybe he’s right.

Maybe it will be.

54. PEEKAY

Branley’s shit is so lost it wouldn’t matter if it was microchipped.

I nearly jump out of my skin when she busts out of an upstairs bedroom, the door hitting the wall so loudly it stops the party dead. She’s nearly naked and fisting a wine bottle that looks to be empty, all her eye makeup now streaking down her face in a multicolored river of tears.

“Where the fuck is Jack?” she screams, and Park and I immediately shrink into each other a little bit.

Everyone is staring for different reasons. The girls because witnessing the top of the pyramid take a tumble is a spectator sport, and the guys because Branley is on a balcony and not wearing any underwear.