I think about hiding on the back seat, covering myself with sheets and clothes so no one can see me. Once, in the woods behind the motorhome, I turned over a rotting log and there was a tree frog underneath trying to hibernate for winter, his body curled up and tense like he was in a trance. When I tried to put the log back, I worried I might have squished him against the frozen ground or left him too exposed. I wasn’t sure he could snap out of it to move himself. I feel stuck in my brain that way.
The party is getting louder. It’s not like the party at Lion Boy’s house; there’s an edge to the sound. Tears drip into the collar of my coat. I know it’s bad to be wet when it’s cold. I try to picture the times I fell asleep in a booth at Margo’s Diner, pretend the angry noise outside is chatter and kitchen sounds and Margo telling stories. Outside, someone walks between my car and the streetlight. I keep my head down and wait for the light to shine on my face again, but it doesn’t. When I look up, Adam is there, hand raised like he was about to knock on my windshield.
Something isn’t right about how he’s found me, but seeing a face I recognize makes the blood flow back to my fingers. I wipe my cheeks, turn the key in the ignition.
“Are you alright?” he asks as I roll down the passenger window.
“Why are you following me?”
“I was hungry.” He holds up a plastic bag with a box in it. “Calzone. You want half?”
“No.” I can smell the calzone, greasy and warm. I want him to take it away before I cave.
“You sure?” He smiles. “You’ve got to be cold.”
“I’m fine.” I want him to leave, except once he does, I will have sent away the one person in the world who knows where I am.
“Come to my place.” His cheeks are chapped from the cold.
I have thought long and hard about what he would get from this arrangement, and there’s only one thing I can figure out. “No, thank you,” I say, sweetly as I can.
“Park in front of my house at least,” he says. “So I know you’re safe.”
I point at him, at how he found me. “How do I know you’re safe?”
“I’m not stalking you. I was worried.”
“You don’t even know me!”
Adam bends, hands on knees, so he can look at me better. He’s different from Matty, like he’s grown into his body. His stubble isn’t spotted and sparse. “Please. I’ll sleep better.” He shifts a little and the streetlight shines over his shoulder into my eyes, turning him into just the shape of a person.
“I live right up the hill,” he says. “It’s a nice street. Quiet.”
I look through the windshield at the pack of boys collecting outside the party house. One of them is shoving another one; the rest are laughing but it looks like the wind could change direction way too fast.
“Fine,” I say, but when Adam reaches for the door handle, I flinch. I don’t mean to. It just happens.
“Okay.” Adam backs away. “It’s on Hudson Street. Third white house on the left. You know Hudson?”
I shake my head.
“So if you make a U-turn here and then—” He looks away. A car drives by and the swish of tires on the wet road drowns out the rest of his words. I don’t want to hear them anyway. My brain can’t hold the information. I’m just too tired. I am so tired. I hope the streetlights are dim enough that he can’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.
Adam stops giving me directions. “Okay,” he whispers, like he’s saying it to himself. He leans toward the window, careful not to rest his hands on my car. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll walk home and you drive slow behind me. There aren’t many people on the roads right now, and it isn’t far, so it’ll be fine. Okay?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He gives me a smile and waves his arm like Let’s go.
I start the car, do a U-turn, keep pace with him as he walks on the sidewalk.
He has a slight hitch in his giddyup, as Margo would say. Heavier on his left foot than his right. His shoulders slope forward; the back of his neck is bare. No scarf. He walks quick, swinging his bag of takeout, looking over to check on me again and again.
When we start to climb the hill, he can’t walk as fast and it’s almost impossible to drive slow enough. He waves as I pass, pointing to the left I’m supposed to take. When I see him in my rearview mirror, he’s completely caught up in making sure I go the right way. It is so much more effort than I’m used to anyone giving me and I start to think that maybe it’s fine. Maybe all of it is fine. Not everyone is as squirrelly as my father. Margo was always nice to me for the sake of being nice, so it is a possible thing.