I toy around with the idea of asking a cop if there’s somewhere we can go where we might be able to glimpse what construction is looking like, but things have been too intense in this neighborhood. It’s been almost nine years and the fact that cops are still hanging around shows that the city means business. I’ve heard stories of residents who couldn’t even get back into their own buildings because they didn’t have IDs updated with their current addresses. I don’t want to get kicked out of here, or risk something worse going down, especially with a Decker by my side.
Something feels off.
Nah, not something.
Someone.
That someone is me.
I feel off, like my heart’s switch has been flipped.
“I thought I would cry.”
“Is it because I’m here? I could give you some privacy.”
“No, I want you here.”
“Okay. Then what is it?”
“Ground Zero’s emptiness reminds me of the funeral.” I keep staring at the hidden memorial, waiting to feel something. “I didn’t even want to throw a funeral because that meant accepting my parents were dead instead of holding on to hope that they were going to be recovered. No body, no proof. Kind of like how if you don’t see a character die on the page or on TV, you wait for that plot twist to blow your mind. I was thinking wild shit, like how my mom and dad were never at the towers that morning and instead assumed new identities and lived happily ever after somewhere else. And of course they had to leave me behind to protect me, like classic dead-but-not-really parents.”
Valentino is trying to read my mind. “Thinking your parents abandoned you didn’t actually comfort you, did it?”
“Telling myself that story helped me get my first full night’s sleep back then.” I still remember waking up that morning, so rested that I wasn’t even thrown off by waking up in Team Young’s guest room. I just thought it was one of our many sleepovers. That was a win for everyone in the house, since I had spent the other nights screaming; poor Dahlia had to go stay over at her abuela’s house because she wasn’t getting any sleep. “I got to a point where I stopped telling those stories, even though no remains were ever found.”
Valentino stares at the construction site. “I’m sorry to say it, but I think your parents died in the towers. Maybe it’s because I’m not a storyteller like you, but I can’t imagine them living different lives and not coming back for you by now. I’ve only known you for twelve hours, and I couldn’t even abandon you in this dark, cold corner of the city that’s heavily patrolled. You’re too special, Orion.”
Dude is trying to blow up my heart. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want my parents to haunt you.”
“Can ghosts haunt other ghosts?”
All it takes is one second—one impossibly long second—to forget that he’s dying.
“I don’t know, but if you all hang out, tell them I love them.”
“I will. I’ll make it really clear that you’ve grown to be a great man . . . who sucks at history.”
“They know that shit already.”
“I’ll have to find something else to share, then.”
Okay, that shit comes off flirty, but whatever idea he’s got brimming, that’s not something I want him talking about with my mom and dad.
I pull out the camera from my coat’s pocket and snap a picture of Valentino.
“What was that for?” he asks.
“You’re the first guy I’ve brought to meet my parents.”
Valentino is blushing, definitely not sun-kissed cheeks. “Hopefully I’m not the last, Orion.”