“Owen’s therapy is costing them a fortune. If I want college at all, it has to be on the faculty family rate where my dad teaches.”
Gudmund’s mouth opened in shock. This hadn’t been their plan. Not at all. They were both going to go to the same college, both going to share a dorm room.
Both going to be hundreds of miles away from home.
“Oh, Seth –”
“You can’t go,” Seth said, shaking his head. “You can’t go now.”
“Seth, I have to –”
“You can’t.” Seth’s voice was breaking now, and he fought to control it. “Please.”
Gudmund put a hand on his shoulder. Seth jerked away from it, even though the feel of it was what he wanted more than the world.
“Seth,” Gudmund said. “It’ll be okay.”
“How?”
“This isn’t our whole lives. It isn’t even close. It’s high school, Sethy. It’s not meant to last forever. For a goddamn good reason.”
“It’s been –” Seth said to the windshield. “Since New Year, since you weren’t there, it’s been –”
He stopped. He couldn’t tell Gudmund how bad it had been. The worst time of his life. School had been nearly unbearable, and sometimes he’d gone whole days without actually speaking to anyone. There were a few people, girls mostly, who tried to tell him they thought what was happening to him was unfair, but all that did was serve to remind him that he’d gone from having three good friends to having none. Gudmund had been pulled out of school by his parents. H was hanging out with a different crowd and not speaking to him.
And Monica.
He couldn’t even think about Monica.
“It’s a few more months,” Gudmund said. “Hang in there. You’ll make it through.”
“Not without you.”
“Seth, please don’t say stuff like that. I can’t take it when you say stuff like that.”
“You’re everything I’ve got, Gudmund,” Seth said quietly. “You’re it. I don’t have anything else.”
“Don’t say that!” Gudmund said. “I can’t be anyone’s everything. Not even yours. I’m going out of my mind with all this. I can’t stand the fact that I have to go away. I want to kill someone! But I can take it if I know you’re out there, surviving, getting through it. This won’t be forever. There’s a future. There really is. We’ll find a way, Seth. Seth?”
Seth looked at him, and he could now see what he hadn’t seen before. Gudmund was already gone, had already put his mind into Bethel Academy, sixty-five miles away, that he was already living in a future at UW or WSU, which were even farther, and maybe that future included Seth somehow, maybe that future really did have a place for the two of them –
But Seth was only here. He wasn’t in that future. He was only in this unimaginable present.
And he didn’t see how he’d ever get from here to there.
“There’s more than this, Sethy,” Gudmund said. “This sucks beyond belief, but there’s more. We just have to get there.”
“We just have to get there,” Seth said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s right.” Gudmund touched Seth’s shoulder again. “Hang in there, please. We’ll make it. I promise you.”
They both jumped at the sound of a door slamming. “Gudmund!” Gudmund’s father shouted from the porch, loud enough to wake the neighbors. “You’d better answer me, boy!”
Gudmund rolled down his window. “I’m here!” he shouted back. “I needed some fresh air.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” His father squinted into the darkness where Seth and Gudmund were parked. “You get back in here. Now!”
Gudmund turned back to Seth. “We’ll e-mail. We’ll talk on the phone. We won’t lose contact, I promise.”
He lunged forward and kissed Seth hard, one last time, the smell of him filling Seth’s nose, the bulk of his body rocking Seth back in the seat, the squeeze of his hands around Seth’s torso –
And then he was gone, sliding out the door, hurrying back into the glow of the porchlight, arguing with his father on the way.
Seth watched him go.
And as Gudmund disappeared behind another slamming door, Seth felt his own doors closing.
The doors of the present, shutting all around him, locking him inside.
Forever.
28
It takes Seth a moment to realize he’s on the floor. He doesn’t remember lying down, but he’s cramped and stiff, like he’s been there for hours.
He sits up. He feels lighter.
Like he’s almost empty.
The weight from the dream feels like it’s in the room somewhere, and he’s distantly aware of it, but of himself, he feels –
Nothing. He feels nothing.
He gets to his feet. The sleep has returned some of his strength. He flexes his hands, rolls his neck, stretches.
Then he sees that small beams of sun are pouring through the cracks in the blinds.
The rain has stopped. The sun is back out.
And he promised himself a run, didn’t he?
Keeping his mind clear, he changes into a pair of shorts and one of the new T-shirts. His sneakers aren’t proper running shoes, but they’ll do. He debates whether to take one of the bottles of water but decides to leave it behind.
He skips breakfast. He’s barely eaten in the last day and a half, but there’s a purpose in his chest that feels like it’s feeding him.
It’s the same purpose he felt when he went down to the beach.
He lets the thought slide through his head and out the other side.
There is nothing this morning.
Nothing at all.
Nothing but running.
He goes to the front door. He doesn’t shut it behind him.
He runs.
It was cold, possibly below freezing when he left his house that afternoon, having meticulously cleaned his room without really knowing why, without somehow even really being aware of doing it, just getting everything in its right place, neat and tidy and final, so nothing was left undone.
His mother had taken Owen to therapy and his father was working in the kitchen. Seth walked down the stairs to the living room. His eyes caught that horrible painting by his uncle, the horse, in terror, in agony, but stilled, forever, watching him go, watching as he closed the front door behind him.