“Came for my paycheck,” I say.
When he hears my voice, he looks at me. “Dude,” he says, and I know he can tell I’ve been crying. I know I’m probably a wreck and a half.
“Can you sneak in and get it?” I ask, and start tearing up again.
“Sure,” he says. “Anything for you, Pilgrim.” He taps my shoulder with his palm before he walks back inside. I wait, studying the alley. I want to be able to remember everything about it: the smell of wet leaves and soggy cigarette butts, the echo of the water dripping off the fire escape. I wish I could keep it. All of it. I wish I could stay. I pull a wrinkled napkin from my purse and press it to my knee, carving into it with a dying ballpoint pen: I, April, will miss you.
“Got it,” Bodie says in a loud whisper when he comes back outside. “Figured you didn’t want anyone to know, so I snagged it while Carly was helping a customer.”
“Thank you.” I hand him the napkin, folded in four. “Can you leave this for Carly? On the bulletin board. Maybe like in an hour or so?”
“April,” Bodie says, and I think it might be the first time he’s called me anything other than Pilgrim. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“You’re a really good guy,” I say, and hug him before I even know what I’m doing.
“Can I help?”
“I wish you could.” I squeeze him hard. When I look up, he wipes the tears off my cheeks. I kiss him. I just reach up and touch his face and kiss him. At first, I pretend he’s Adam. I pretend I’m saying goodbye the right way. Then I kiss him harder and I know he’s Bodie. I hope that it will turn into some kind of amazing kiss where my knees buckle and my heart falls into my stomach. I am hoping for a roller coaster, so maybe it will mean what I had with Adam wasn’t something special. But it’s just a kiss. After all the times Bodie made me blush and all the times I found excuses to talk to him, it’s just a kiss. It’s not even a good one.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and pull away from him. “I have to go.” I run down the alley. I hear him yell, “Hey, Pilgrim!” but I don’t look back.
* * *
I’m almost to the edge of The Commons when I hear Carly call out to me. I stop. I want to keep going, but it’s Carly and I can’t.
“April,” she says again, out of breath, catching up, and I can tell from the way she’s looking at me that she knows I’m leaving. She knows it’s time for me to go.
“I can’t say why.”
“You can tell me,” she says, hugging me. “I won’t say anything to anyone. Sometimes, you just need someone to know your secret, right? To take the air out of it, you know?”
“If I tell you, you have to live with it,” I whisper. “If I leave, I’m the only one who has to.”
“I could help you. We could fix whatever it is. Anything.”
“If I leave, it won’t hurt him as much as if I stay.” I start to fall apart. Our hug turns into her holding me up. “Tell him it’s all my fault and not his,” I say when I get my voice back. “And everything he did, everything he is, is just the best thing I could even picture. Tell him it’s not about the person being left. No matter what I do or try or say or pretend, I can’t fix what’s wrong with me. Tell him that, okay?”
Carly nods. She’s crying too. We’re a mess, the two of us. And I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye to her, because it’s so much harder than I thought it would be.
“And you’ll be there?” I ask. “When he’s sad?”
Carly wipes her cheeks. “I’ll make him pancake-shaped pancakes.”
“You,” I say, and I’m going to tell her that she’s my first real honest to goodness friend, she’s like my sister. I’m going to tell her how much she’s done for me, how much I love her. But I can’t say any of it. I can’t say it and then walk away, so all I say is “You,” and slip Adam’s key in her pocket and kiss her cheek and walk away as fast as I can and then faster, until I’m running to my car. The soles of my boots smack the pavement and splash melting ice and salt on my legs. It stings through my tights, and when I get in the car and close the door, everything outside is muffled and I’m stuck with just me and the sobs and my stinging red legs and how it feels like someone just ripped all my skin off.