Adam hears every word I say, but he has to be drunk to want me and even then, he can always stop. The fooling around part with Adam is better than sex was with Matty, but I worry it means that this isn’t going to last, and I want it to. More than just because I want a place to stay, but because I like being with Adam. I like talking to him. I like the way we have patterns, that things are the same most of the time.
At night, when Adam turns the light off, we confess things to each other. Stupid stuff, mostly. Adam says he’s afraid of clowns. I tell him about the way starlings flocked in bare tree branches in the winter in Little River, so many that they looked like leaves, and when they up and flew away all at once, it would make me scared for reasons I don’t know how to say. I tell him like it was years ago. Not weeks.
We lie there, staring at the ceiling, looking for shapes in cracks we can just barely see in the street light that leaks through the blinds. Sides touching, holding hands, like Matty and I used to when we watched clouds as kids.
Adam tells me that he slept with a blankie until he was twelve. I say that I used to sing Whitney Houston into a pencil at the top of my lungs. He cops to liking Air Supply. I tell him about the pink puke sneakers I had from the time I threw up in Margo’s car. I don’t tell him why I puked, just that my dad didn’t see the need to buy me new shoes. But even that feels like I’m saying a little too much, because I have to be so careful about the whens.
There’s a part of me that wants Adam to know everything, like if I told him, my life could start from that moment and nothing before would count. It wouldn’t even leave a stain. But if he knew everything, he wouldn’t like me anymore. He couldn’t. The catch in all of it is that if he knew and didn’t care, he couldn’t be the Adam I want him to be. Either way I’d lose him.
Eventually his grip on my hand gets softer. “What are you thinking about?” he asks in his slow, sleepy voice. He likes to talk until the very last moment before he falls asleep.
“A tree frog,” I say. “What are you thinking about?”
“Donuts,” he says, and then he’s done for the day, breathing softly through his mouth.
In the dim light, I watch Adam drift away, the vee between his eyebrows softening until it disappears, and I wonder what it must be like to be one of those people who sleep soundly and wake up rested.
They say you spend like half your life asleep, but I think I’ve been awake for most of it. I wonder if I’ll ever stop waking up at the slightest little noise, thinking it could be my mom sneaking back home to take me with her. I wonder if sleeping is something I could ever learn to do.
— Chapter 20 —
I call Margo on Sundays at two o’clock from the pay phone outside of Woolworth’s. It’s my deal with her. She says someone needs to keep track of me. She says I can call collect, but I don’t. I take a roll of dimes with me. Last time I called, we used up the whole roll and I couldn’t stop shivering for hours afterward.
I don’t want to use the phone at Adam’s or at work. I don’t think anyone is tracking the call. It’s not like I’m someone important, like in those movies where a kid goes missing and men in black suits with fancy equipment swoop in and take over the family room to wait for phone calls and ransom notes. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t taken Irene’s car or trashed the motorhome, my dad wouldn’t have even noticed or cared that I left. And I don’t only sort of believe that in a feeling sorry for myself way. I know it’s the truth and I think it’s better to call a spade a spade. But I use the pay phone just in case, so there’s no chance anyone in Little River could ever find out about Adam. And I don’t mention him to Margo. I just tell her I have a room in a boardinghouse, even though I’m not sure if boardinghouses are a real thing that still exist. I ended up confessing I was in Ithaca, but I tell her that I’m probably going to switch to a better place soon, so there’s no point in giving her my address. I think she knows I’m telling tales but worries if she pushes too hard, I won’t call again.
“Oh, thank god, girlie,” she says when she picks up the phone. “I thought you might not call.”
“I said I would. I always do.”
“I know.” Her voice sounds worn. “But I always worry.”
“Well, knock it off,” I tell her, trying to laugh. “You’ll give yourself wrinkles.”
I wait for Margo to laugh and tell me I’m too much or say that when God made me he made a mistake and gave me too many funny bones. She doesn’t.