For his part, Amadeo sees only Al’s expression—the love and worry, the gentle loosening of the older man’s features—and he is struck in his solar plexus by something he can’t precisely identify, something that isn’t quite envy and isn’t admiration, but is in the same family. The feeling is aching, and pleasurable, too, and also unbearable in its intensity. He chuckles unconvincingly. “Yeah, whoever made that Jesus didn’t hold back, huh.”
Isaiah turns and smiles a pained smile at Amadeo, eyes shining. “My girlfriend OD’d last night. Just thirty years old and a hundred pounds and now she’s gone.” When his father puts a hand on his wrist, Isaiah falters. “I wish I’d been there.”
Amadeo hooks his thumbs in his pockets, then removes them. He straightens.
“Listen, son,” Al says, swiveling his attention slowly to Amadeo. “Will you pray with us?”
And as if he’s a child being led to some place of safety where he’s never been, Amadeo nods, and the three of them make their way to their knees. There, with the press of the concrete rooting him to the dirt and the whole spinning planet, Amadeo thinks not of himself, but prays, truly prays, for this lost young woman and this addicted man and for this father who loves him.
Only when she gets home on Friday afternoon, with the whole desolate weekend ahead of her, does Angel understand that the fight on Wednesday was irrevocable. Lizette made her decision, and she will not be going back on it. Angel drops onto her bed, watching from a fetal position as Connor plays with a sealed tube of diaper ointment on the floor.
Angel is sick of irrevocability: of fights, of illness, of death.
How are you? she texts Lizette, then feels stupid. As overtures go, it’s too flip. Angel should address the fight, should address the fact that Lizette hasn’t been in school. She should address the fact that, without Lizette, Smart Starts! is a different, much worse place. They’ve all turned against Brianna, even Jen. Brianna has been formal and unsmiling, setting them to work individually in their workbooks.
This afternoon’s Community Meeting was a subdued affair, with no mention of Wednesday. “Okay,” Brianna said into the silence as the girls looked at their nails. “How about we go around and do Peaches and Pits.” And when Ysenia, who went first, gave only a Peach （“We had a birthday for my grandpa and that was fun”）， Brianna didn’t press her, and no one else offered a Pit either.
When it was Angel’s turn, she truly couldn’t think of a Peach, but she was surprised by the spite in her voice when she spoke. “I don’t have a Peach.” Her arms were crossed, a defiant posture that Angel realized was Lizette’s.
Brianna startled, seeming to also recognize Lizette. “Okay. Pass, then. Christy?”
Lizette was right; in walking out on Wednesday, Brianna shook the bedrock of the classroom, and then betrayed them all further by letting Lizette walk out. After school, Angel peered into Lizette’s desk, hoping to find something of hers, something she could hold, maybe, or something essential she’d need to return to her. But Lizette had cleared out everything.
She hasn’t texted back. Angel should probably address the fact that she’s been going nuts without any word from her, that she checks her phone a thousand times a day, that her heart hurts from being clenched. She should, probably, address the fact that she’s in love with Lizette. So she adds, Are you okay? Which is lame, and offensive, too, because she’s assuming that Lizette isn’t okay, that what happened was terrible, and won’t pointing out how terrible it is make Lizette feel worse? How are you? she tries—a nice, neutral, open-ended question, one that demonstrates caring—but it’s too ordinary. And now the sheer number of texts—six, including three unanswered ones from yesterday—looks so desperate. She should stop—let Lizette answer if she wants, and if she doesn’t, well, then, fine. But why should Angel be ashamed of how she feels? Be true to yourself, the magnet on her grandmother’s fridge implores. I miss you, she writes, but rethinks it. Miss you.