Here’s Looking at You, Kid

an accidental romance in fifteen parts

by Douglas

Chapter 13 – Addio, Casablanca?

It’s still amazing to me, looking back, how my mind worked at that moment; churning on different, parallel tracks, under the shock. I remember it, so well.

The first thing I remember, and it’s a vivid, vivid memory, is a quick stab of regret; of mourning. That Cole would never get to see my new apartment, all furnished the way I’d been thinking and planning . . . including the little surprises I’d been daydreaming about. The fun little touches that I hoped would make him laugh, or the other things I knew he’d appreciate. The Ikea stuff we would have assembled, swearing, together.

And at the same time, I was reading, and re-reading the words on my cell phone screen – both of the words; a grand total of six letters – convinced with part of my mind that somehow I was reading it wrong, that it was all a mistake, that the words really meant something else.

But the message didn’t change.

she nos

She knows.

Cole’s mom knew, about us. About Cole and me.

There wasn’t any mistake. I wasn’t misunderstanding.

She knows.

Cole can text one-handed; I’d seen him do it. He can text one-handed, with his cell and his hand in his pocket; Texting In Class 1A. I used to do it myself.

It was that type of message. I knew, it was that kind of text message; he was probably talking – arguing – with his mom, right at that minute. If he’d been alone, if he’d had thirty seconds, he would have called; or the message would have been longer, at least.

She Knows.

The realities began to hit home, one after another, like waves hitting the beach; each one washing up higher.

It had to be because of what happened with Trevor; it had to be.

I knew at the time, it was a risk, giving my name and number to Trevor’s mom. Not that I had a choice. But I knew she talked to Cole’s mother, I knew they were friends, so I knew there was some risk.

But not that much risk!  All I said was, I was Cole’s friend. Cole had lots of friends!  Even some my age, older brothers of classmates, mostly . . .

Maybe, I thought – maybe Trevor somehow said something, maybe he was so upset, so freaked, he let something slip - ?

It didn’t matter, I realized, in the end. It didn’t matter.

She Knows.

What mattered – first, foremost, overwhelmingly – was the fear, the near certainty, actually, that whatever happened . . . my access to Cole was threatened. My ability to see him, to be with him, to see his face, to touch his face – was threatened.

At best. At best. It could be, I might not see him again, for a long time; a long, long time, depending on what happened, how things worked out with him and his mother. And that horrible possibility – probability, actually – made me feel physically ill. Sick to my stomach, in a sudden, sharp, elevator-dropping rush.

And on the heels of that, the exposed, naked-vulnerable feeling, of knowing that she knew about us. Knew that Cole and I were close; knew – presumably – that Cole and I were lovers; that we were having sex.

His mom. His mom knew we were having sex.

Illegally. Me, nineteen, and adult; Cole, sixteen, and underage.

Statutory rape. A felony; a serious felony. Sex offense.

My mental wheels spun, frantically, covering territory that had haunted my thoughts and daydreams – day-nightmares – since the pool party.

I didn’t think I could get convicted for statutory rape – not unless Cole testified against me, or (and the memory brought me up short, with a shock) Trevor testified against me. But they wouldn’t, either one of them, Cole would go to jail before saying a word against me –

And then, with a jolt, a sickening, physical jolt, the worst jolt of that terrifying day – I remembered the video we’d made at the beach. The video, and the pictures; of me and Cole, of me and Cole and Trevor.

Oh, God.

It really was a shock; a horrible rush. Like a flood of ice water hitting the pit of my stomach.

That DVD – with the video, and the stills – that DVD would be enough. Enough to get me convicted; enough to send me to prison. Not county jail; the California state prison system.

With all that implied. The waves of realization kept pounding, and pounding, and pounding.

The state prisons in California are hugely overcrowded, barely under control; I’ve heard stories from my dad, from his pro-bono legal work.

Prison rape happens. Every day. It’s treated like part of the sentence, like a normal part of the penal system; we even had a state Attorney General who joked about it, to the press. And he was a liberal Democrat.

I was nineteen, skinny, and cute. If I went to prison for having sex with an underage partner – sex with an underage boy –

No; just, no. I stood up from my desk, in a blind panic, looking around the empty room, not knowing what to do. My heart beating like it was about to explode.

I couldn’t call Cole; I knew that, at least. Whatever he was going through, I had to wait for him to call me.

I looked down at my laptop; I looked down at my desk, and the locked drawer with our DVDs inside. I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears.

First things first. I picked up my phone, and punched the shortcut for Derrick. Calling him for support and advice, and help, the way I always had. The way we always had, with each other.

And his voicemail picked up, right away.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Derrick and Drew had gotten in around noon, finally; I’d helped unload Derrick’s stuff, and then they’d gone to crash at Drew’s room, just the same way I’d done, after the drive.

I remember thinking, poor Derrick’s going to be upset, when he finally hears about this. Upset to have missed my call.

“Uhhhh . . . hey, Derrick.” My voice sounded strange, in my empty room; and I could hear it shake, I could hear the stress in it, even though I couldn’t do anything about it. “It’s me. Ummmm . . . something’s come up; could you give me a call, when you get a chance?” I tried a really little laugh, just to make it sound less dire. “I hope you guys are actually sleeping, instead of getting more tired out.”

And I winced at how it sounded, as I closed my phone.

I knew Derrick. As soon as he heard that message, heard my voice – he’d come running. Literally; from Unit 2, a block away.

But I wished he’d picked up. I wished I could talk to him, right then.

Back to my laptop; and my desk.

I’d watched the DVD, of course, and looked at the still pictures.

Quite a few times, actually.

But I’d always watched it from the original disk, I never copied anything to my hard drive; I was way too paranoid for that. I thought . . . hazily, somehow, I thought I was relatively safe, not copying the files to my hard drive. Never having copied the files to my hard drive.

But I’m not technical. I didn’t know. For sure.

I didn’t know if some cache file or temporary file on my laptop might have enough evidence to send me to prison.

Well.

One thing I did know; I had to get rid of the disks. The DVD with the video and stills, and that first DVD Cole gave me, on our double date; with the jpegs of him and me, and of him, alone, posing.

My hands were actually shaking, some, as I unlocked the desk. I had to try three times, to get the key in the lock.

I don’t expect anyone to believe it, unless they’ve been in my kind of situation.

If you’ve ever been there – if you’ve ever been that afraid, that fearful of hearing the knock on your door that means the police are here, with a warrant, and if they look, if they do a thorough search it’s the End Of The World As We Know It – if you’ve been there, you’ll know.

I broke the disks.

It’s surprisingly hard to do. Try it, sometime; first they bend, they bend almost in half, and you don’t think they’ll ever break; but then you bend them the other way, and they kind of – shatter, with a sharp, snapping sound. Some big pieces; but lots of small pieces, shards, really, and the aluminum backing stuff kind of flakes off, into little bits of aluminum confetti. Not all of it; but enough.

I went on breaking them up. The large pieces into smaller pieces; breathing hard, sweat on my face, and not from exertion.

I had to use the kitchen broom and the dustpan, to get all the pieces off the floor; and then – another thing I won’t expect anybody to believe – I took the dustpan into the kitchen, and emptied the shards into a leftover plastic bag, and then, just to be sure, or just in case, I emptied the leftover cold, wet espresso grounds into the bag, and kind of shook everything up.

And then I thought some more; and I got out a second plastic bag, and I scooped half of the wet, cold, gritty mess from the first bag into the second bag with my bare hand; and then I tied both of the bags up, and I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, and I found my jacket, and my umbrella –

And then, I looked at my laptop, lying open on the desk.

I closed down my laptop, stuffed it into my backpack, hoisted the backpack over my shoulder, and picked up the plastic bags –

And I left.

It was useless, of course. And ridiculous. I knew it, even at the time.

I was thinking it, even as I left my room, paranoid with the fear, the completely absurd fear, that Rajiv was going to come around the corner with a couple of uniformed cops any moment. I was thinking it as I took the stairs down, instead of the elevator, clattering down flight after flight after flight.

It didn’t matter what I did with my DVDs. I could grind them into atoms; but there were copies. Cole had his copy; and so did Trevor.

She Knows.

Why? Had she seen Cole’s copy?

Did she have it? Was she about to turn it over to the police? File a criminal complaint against me?

I had to do something. And I had to get out; I had to get away from my dorm room. Paranoid as it might have been – I had to get away from the waiting, the waiting for that knock on the door. I wanted to get where nobody knew how to find me; just so I could think.

Out into the dorm courtyard, then onto the street, walking fast, just to work off the adrenaline. Downhill to Telegraph; and one bag went into a trashcan there, next to a clump of boys around Cole’s age, huddled against a wall with their skateboards and a strong whiff of marijuana. Then along Telegraph, towards the campus, passing the little fast-food places and the photocopy shops and the pricey, counterculture-clothing boutiques.

The wheels turning in my head, the whole time.

What the hell had possessed me, that I’d let myself make that DVD? What the FUCK was I thinking - ?

Yeah; that one went through my brain; time, after time, after time. I was already paranoid about the age-of-consent issue; but I made the DVD anyway. What the FUCK was I thinking?

At Bancroft, I tossed the second bag into the trash; I picked a can that was almost overflowing, with plastic bags and fast-food cartons and stuff that smelled bad. I did it casually, deliberately almost-not-looking, as I crossed the street, and pushed my way into the relative darkness of the campus.

I hadn’t been thinking, of course. Cole just told me we were going to do it, in that flat, definite, no-argument way of his, and I’d gotten a hormone rush to end all hormone rushes, and I could barely study, I could barely eat, even, for the three days until we actually drove down the coast –

Yeah. That would be a great excuse, in open court. ‘I’m sorry, your honor, but my underage boyfriend told me we were going to make a video of us fucking on the beach, and so, I guess I kind of lost it, my judgment slipped . . . It won’t happen again.’

Right.

I walked all over the campus, in the dark.

The Berkeley campus is pretty heavily wooded, like I’ve said; sloping, with lawns, and trees, and wild, oak-wooded areas, and a mix of old and new buildings scattered throughout.

It’s dim, at night. More brightly lit around the important buildings, and the Campanile is lit up like a marble spike; but mostly the campus is dim, lit by occasional, old-fashioned iron lamp posts standing along the foot paths that wind through the trees, and over the branches of Strawberry Creek.

It’s beautiful, actually; it’s a beautiful way to see the campus, especially with a full moon, and puffy, silver-lit clouds like there were tonight, and if you haven’t done it, you haven’t really experienced Cal.

I wasn’t seeing any of it. My paranoia was spinning on; and on, and on.

If Cole’s mom didn’t have the video, the stills – that was one thing.

Oh, she could still make trouble for me. LOTS of trouble; a world of hurt.

She could insist on filing a police report, even without Cole’s cooperation. She could get the police to start an investigation; send them to interrogate me, interrogate Derrick, and Rajiv . . .

And even aside from that – even if I DIDN’T get arrested, and have to face that arrest record for a sex offense for the rest of my life – even aside from that, she could get a restraining order against me, order me to keep my distance from Cole, complain to the University about my conduct: maybe even – probably, under the circumstances; what with all the evidence of Cole signing in to visit me in the dorms – probably get me kicked out of the dorms, and out of the UC system altogether; a lifetime ban.

And that was looking like a best-case scenario.

If Cole’s mom DID have the video . . .

I pounded up the slope, past Memorial Glade, where Mark and Matt and Giovanni and I had played frisbee together. Not so long ago. The lawn was white in the moonlight, and the trees and bushes around it were black.

If Cole’s mom had the video, the pictures . . .

My cell went off, with the combination vibrate, low-mutter tone I used for Cole’s number. His permanent number; not his supermarket disposable.

I opened it up, cautiously. “ – hello?”

It was Cole’s phone; that didn’t necessarily mean it was going to be Cole on the other end. Not anymore.

“It’s me.” Cole’s voice, low, not much more than a whisper, on the other end. “Are you okay?”

Almost a frantic whisper. It didn’t reassure me.

“I’m okay. I’m out on the campus, right now. Are you all right?”

My face was scrunched up, as I said it. Trying to put all my love and fear into the few words.

“Yeah. I’m fine. My mom isn’t, though.” I heard him exhale, shakily, on the other end. “Did you get rid of . . . you know?”

Meaning, the disks. The Evidence. Meaning, I was right, and the whole situation was horrible.

Oh, fuck. Fuck. Ice water, in my guts, again.

“Yes. Just now. You?”

Hesitation on his end. “I’ll tell you about it . . . Can you still meet me, tonight?”

In the midst of everything, a kind of a desperate rush; whatever happened, I was going to see him again. Face to face. At least one more time. I ached for it.

“Yeah. Oh, please. Anytime.” I looked up at the wet winter clouds, lit by the streetlights and the campus lights, below.

“Okay. Let’s meet at the wall – the usual place – in half an hour? No, wait; make it forty-five minutes?” His voice still low, almost whispering.

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Bring your laptop, okay? Can you do that?”

“I will.” I hesitated. “I love you, and I don’t care who’s listening.”

“Nobody’s listening. Yet. And I love you, Jeremy, I really do.”

Forty-five minutes. I closed my phone, put it in my pocket, and started walking again, blindly. Checking the clock on the Campanile, automatically.

I was so, so totally fucked.

Just from that short exchange – I was so totally fucked. My worst fears looked like they were coming true.

It was the lowest point; the worst part of the night, for me, the worst part of the whole miserable experience.

I found myself looking across the campus, towards the parking lot on the north side where I kept my car.

And thinking; in my desperation. Thinking a lot; thinking fast.

Okay. Here’s the thing.

I grew up in the ‘burbs of San Diego. From my house it was maybe twenty minutes, maybe less, to the main border crossing with Mexico at San Ysidro.

Where Derrick and Drew and I grew up, for all of us, Mexico was kind of a looming presence, a huge, overwhelming fact in the landscape, and in our lives. Something you could almost feel. The Mexican border; and the sea. Wherever I went, down home, whatever the address, whether I knew the place or not, I could always point to those two borders, I always knew where they were; Mexico, and the sea.

Mexico was a different country. A different police force; a different legal system. Extradition worked . . . but not that quickly. Not all the time.

Sometimes things get stalled. Sometimes cases aren’t developed enough.

I could do it.

Yeah, I wasn’t twenty minutes from the border, anymore, here in Berkeley; but I could still walk across campus to my car, climb in, start it up, and head over to I-5 and start driving south . . .

I could be in Mexico in twelve hours. Easy. All I had to do was drive.

The more I thought about – the better sense it made.

In spite of my fear, my paranoia – I knew I could do it. I could cross the border comfortably; legally.

Even if Cole’s mom had the video, and the photos – the police would never, ever issue a warrant, without questioning me. Without a positive identification, several positive identifications, tying me to the video and the pictures.

Oh, once I had that knock on the door, and I was sitting across the table from the sex-crime detail, as they looked at the DVD on a laptop screen – once that happened, and they had the visual ID, I was so, so fucked; facing prison.

But until that happened . . . I’d only be a Person Of Interest. Wanted For Questioning, maybe, at worst; not even a warrant out for me.

No trouble crossing the border. No Amber Alert. No extradition to fear; I thought.

I could do it.

Like most people where I came from, I had contacts in Mexico. My family had friends in Ensenada; and I knew places where I could go, places I could stay, in Cabo San Lucas. Maybe even places where I could stay for a long time.

‘Hmmmm . . . ’ from Major Strasser, looking at Rick’s dossier in ‘Casablanca’, the cigarette smoke curling up in the light. ‘Cannot return to America . . . the reason is a little vague.’

I could do it.

And if it sounds extreme, or self-destructive, or over-the-top, remember what I was facing, that dark night on that dark campus.

On the one hand, a real risk of state prison after a conviction for statutory rape, (and maybe production of child pornography); and sex-offender status and electronic monitoring for life, after getting out.

Whatever I was, whatever was left of me, after getting out.

On the other hand – freedom, and comfort, in Mexico, and maybe the chance to negotiate a long-distance resolution, or maybe just waiting for Cole to turn eighteen, and then for the statue of limitations to run out, and for the whole case to go cold . . .

It was all I could think about, as I walked around the campus, waiting for Cole.

*

He was waiting for me, sitting as usual on the little wall in front of the Golden Bear, under the bare trees.

He slid off as I walked up; his eyes were huge, and tragic, as he looked up at me; and then he was squeezing me tight, for a long, long time.

I squeezed him back, and kissed the top of his head; trying to memorize the feel of him, the scent of him. “Hey,” I said, softly.

Cole pulled back, a little.

“It’s not Trevor’s fault!” His face, looking up at me, was strained. “He didn’t say anything, he didn’t say a word. It’s all a stupid mistake.”

“Shhhh.” I kissed his cheek. We were being really indiscrete, but I was past caring. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It was his mom talking to my mom on the phone, she was telling my mom how wonderful you were, how grateful she was, and while she was talking about you, she called you my boyfriend.” His face was white and strained, as he looked up at me. “His mom just assumed you and me were boyfriends. Trevor was there, listening; he said he almost died.”

“It doesn’t really matter, now,” I went, gently.

“When my mom picked me up at the airport, she let me load my stuff into the taxi, and get buckled in, and everything, and then she just asked me, right out, ‘Is this college boy Jeremy your new boyfriend?’” His face was a mask of guilt, as he looked in my eyes. “And like, I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t HAVE to say anything, she just knew, I don’t know how, she just did.”

Maybe because she’s your mom, I didn’t say. “It’s okay,” I went, instead. “It’s okay.” I bent down, and kissed his cheek again, briefly. “It’s okay. You know, I always knew this was going to happen. I really did.”

And it was true.

Somehow, I knew – I just knew, those two years in San Diego, that Jesse and I would never get caught.

And somehow, I’d just known, from the very beginning, that Cole and I WOULD get caught. I’d known it from our first date, I’d known it after our second date, it was why I’d almost broken it off with him. I’d always known. Somehow.

But I hadn’t broken it off with him; because I was falling in love with him. And now I was going to pay the price.

Cole just looked at me. “Did you get rid of the DVDs? Both of them?” Still holding me, his hands on my arms.

“Yeah.” And I looked at him, and drew my breath. “You? And Trev?”

I knew from his face, before he said anything.

“I screwed up,” he said; letting me go. His face was painful to look at. “The disks are all gone, mine and Trevor’s – but . . . ” and he swallowed.

And then his face scrunched up more; and I saw something I thought I’d never see. Cole; about to cry.

“I smashed my disks,” he started, a little haltingly. “And she never found them, or anything, she never WOULD have found them . . . but I’ve got this external hard drive I use for automatic backups. And it had a copy of the video we made, you and me, on it, because I guess I’d been looking at it, a lot, and it got backed up by accident.”

His breathing was coming in gulps, now, close to sobs.

“And I don’t know why I forgot to delete it, before it got backed up, I can’t BELIEVE I forgot to delete it, I can’t believe I screwed up that bad, but I did – ”

“It’s okay, baby,” I went; still gently. I would so hate to see him cry.

He took a shuddering breath.

“She had two hours at home, before she came to pick me up.” He was blinking fast, now, and his eyes were beginning to fill. “And I know she was in my room. I know she was going through my stuff.”

“Okay,” I said. Even though it wasn’t okay. Even as the dread came pressing down. “Do you think she, like, saw – ? ”

“She was building systems and imaging hard drives before I was born.” And his face scrunched up more, fast, and then he caught himself, not-quite crying, yet. “And she’s so mad at me! I’ve never seen her like this, she won’t TALK to me, she won’t say anything, she’s like ice . . . ” He swallowed. “I don’t know. But I think she saw it. I think she’s got a copy . . . ”

And his face crumpled, at last, and then I pulled him in close to me, his face against my shoulder, as I held him close, and stroked his soft hair. The hair that I’d miss, so much.

“Shhhh,” I whispered. Stroking; holding him, kissing the top of his head. “Shhhh . . . . ” In public, in the darkness of the campus.

Knowing what I had to do.

“Cole . . . baby . . . I may have to go away, for awhile.”

My own voice shuddering, now. Even as I tried to make it calm, and gentle. I could hear my own tears, gathering underneath.

“No.” On a kind of rising note; into my shoulder.

“Just for awhile.” Maybe forever. I kissed the top of his head, again. “Until we can get this all figured out . . . ”

“No!” More definite, now. And his face came up, wet; looking at me. “No. I’m coming with you.”

“Cole . . . I think I have to go. To Mexico. If you come with me, it’ll be kidnapping, and transportation of a minor across state lines for immoral purposes . . . ” I tried to say it gently, reasonably.

‘Where I’ve got to go,’ Rick told Ilsa, the plane looming in the background, ‘you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of.’

“Then I’ll wait a week, and follow you. I’ll leave a note saying I’m running away with somebody else, that I’m going to Canada – it doesn’t matter.” His face was still wet; but the look was fierce, now. Determined. “You are so not going anywhere without me. You are not going anywhere without me.”

“Baby . . . ” I tried to keep sounding reasonable, but my voice was still catching, on the verge of breaking. “No. You’ve got a life here, you’ve got your dad, and Trevor – ”

“I mean it, Jeremy.” He pulled away from me a little, his eyes glittering with tears; but his face was set, and hard, now. “We do belong together; but even more than that, you need me. You won’t make it without me.” His eyes ran over me, up and down, then he was looking me right in the eyes, again. “I know you. You really are sensitive, and principled, and honest; and if I’m not with you, you’ll get lonely and do something stupid like turning yourself in, or you’ll convince yourself that you have to turn yourself in for your parents’ sake, or something. And I won’t let you.”

I blinked at him.

“But we can make it together, I KNOW we can make it together. I am so going with you.”

I just looked at him, for a heartbeat, and then another heartbeat, and another.

I should have seen this coming. I so should have seen this.

How could I not?

I was thinking, before, only about myself, my own fears, my own jeopardy; the freezing fear of prison. That’s why.

But my own actions had consequences; whatever I did, impacted the two of us, now, intimately. Because we were a couple; a partnership, a pair. For the first time in my life, I was part of a real couple; not a pretend couple, not the we’re-dating-but-I-wish-it-were-more relationship I’d had with Jesse, but a real couple, something bigger than either Cole or me separately.

I looked at him, as the realization crashed in, and I didn’t say anything; and then I took his arms in my hands, and gently, gently lowered my head, until our foreheads touched, my eyes closed; and I just breathed, breathed in the scent of him. Wondering, what to do.

“Jeremy – ”

“Yeah?”

He pulled his head away from mine, and looked up at me; his eyes big, and scared. “She wants to meet you. She wants you to come to our house, tomorrow night.” He swallowed. “For dinner.”  And his face scrunched up as he said the word, ‘dinner’.

*

We went to an espresso shop off of Bancroft, to warm up, to talk, to just be together. Neither of us wanted food. My stomach was churning; the idea of food made me almost sick.

“So she hasn’t been to the police. Yet. You’re sure?”

It made a big difference to me. Obviously. With the ‘dinner’ invitation staring at us.

It would be the perfect time for that knock on the door, that would end up with me in the interrogation room.

Cole was working on my laptop; the light from the screen shining on his face, turning it a little blue-white.

“I’m sure. We were both home, all afternoon, after she picked me up. She didn’t have time before that.” He looked up at me, briefly. “I told her I’d never testify against you. And that I’d leave home permanently if she did go to the police.” He held my eyes, a second, then went back to the screen.

Oh, Jesus.

I knew he meant it.

My stomach took another lurch.

“I don’t know what she wants to do, tomorrow,” he went on, tapping on my keyboard. His voice much more calm, now; still a little upset, shaky, underneath, but calmer. “I think maybe she just wants to scare you off; or scare you away, make you leave town. But I’ve never seen her like this, I’ve never seen her so mad at me, so I don’t know what she’ll do.” He pressed a button, and the loading tray of my DVD drive came whirring out; he took a CD jewel case out of his jacket pocket, took out the CD, put it in the drive, and the loading tray whirred back in again.

He was cleaning my system. Deleting temporary files and caches; and now he was running a program that would overwrite all the free sectors on my hard drive.

“Baby, you think I should come?”

His hand reached across the table, and took mine; he held it, hard.

“Call me, first. Or I’ll call you, first. I’ll watch her tomorrow, I’ll make sure she doesn’t go to the police without me knowing. And if anything feels wrong about it, about dinner, I’ll let you know. But don’t come over until we talk.”

“Okay.” The warmth of his hand, the feel of his skin . . . I squeezed it, and I massaged his knuckles with my thumb. Knowing he had to go, soon; it was late. I tried to smile, just a little; it was painful. “One good thing about this. You got permission to be out after your curfew, for once in your life.”

“You serious?” His brown eyes looked into mine, ironically. “She said I was absolutely forbidden to see you, or to call you, or to contact you. And then she came up with the dinner invitation.” His fingers tightened around mine, a little more. “She knows me. She knew I’d sneak out.”

“Figures.” I looked at him, trying to memorize the lines of his face, the soft down of his eyebrows, the long eyelashes.

“Jeremy?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go without me.” There was fear in his face, now, as he looked in my eyes. “Don’t just go away. Please don’t go away without me.”

I leaned across the table and kissed his cheek, fast.

I didn’t know if I could make that kind of promise.

*  *  *  *  *

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