I find Toad hunched under an awning on Saint Mark’s, hands cupped around a take-out cup of coffee. He looks the same. Same stupid pants. Maybe a little skinnier.
“Hey, Toad.”
He looks at me, startled, then turns away. “What do you want?” He asks, his back toward me.
I hate that he makes me nervous. I step under the awning. “Been a long time.”
He snorts, making a big show of turning to face me. “Has it?”
“How are you?”
He ignores my question. “Go to hell, Nanja.”
He throws his half-drunk coffee into the gutter and starts walking, pulling his head down, like a turtle, into his collar. I walk after him. “Will you wait up, please? Toad, just hold on!”
He spins around so quickly that I run into him, and he pops his chest forward, knocking me back a little. I catch my balance. “What?” he snaps, rain falling down his face.
“Nothing . . . ,” I falter. “So . . . have you seen Seemy?”
He sneers at me, laughs a wide-mouthed laugh that sends rain in a stream off his top lip. “Seemy? Why do you care? I thought you rehabbed us right out of your life.”
“Come on . . .”
“Come on what?” His voice cracks. “Step thirteen, cut the loser dead weight from your life even if it’s your best friend, you can’t give a shit about them anymore no matter what happens to them.” He sniffs loudly, wipes angrily at his eyes, and I realize it’s not just rain, he’s actually crying. “Damn it!” He starts walking quickly away.
“Toad, what are you talking about?” I splash after him and he swings around.
“I’m talking about the fact that I haven’t seen Seemy in weeks! And I don’t know where she is, and her parents won’t talk to me! Do you know the things that could have happened to her? Do you know the kind of people she started hanging out with when you left?”
“You mean like you?” I yell back at him.
He looks like he wants to laugh, but instead he yells, “Me? You think I’m a problem? You have no idea! NO IDEA!”
And then he says, “Where did you go? Just now? You just, like, went blank, right in front of me.” He steps closer to me, grabs my chin, and looks into my eyes. When he lets go, he yells, “I don’t freaking believe you! You’re using! You ditch us because we’re stupid losers, and then you go and . . .” He makes a sound that I think is supposed to be laughter. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m worried about her, Toad. I feel like . . .” My stomach heaves and I have to stop, take a deep breath before I continue. “I feel like something bad happened to her.”
Toad huffs, shakes his head. He looks suddenly exhausted. “Well, welcome to my world. I’ve been worried about her for weeks. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Do you know where to find her?”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?” he snaps. “I can’t find her!”
“But . . . maybe there’s someplace you guys used to hang out—”
“Oh, what? Like the carriage house? You don’t think I’ve checked there?” He looks like he wants to rip my head off. “Why’d you have to stop hanging out with her, Nan? Why would you do that? Was your stupid Nanapocalypse really that bad that you would ditch your best friend?”
“I had to.”
“You left her alone!” he yells.
“I didn’t leave her alone!” I scream at him. “I left her with you!”
“Well,” he says, raising his hands and dropping them again, “I wasn’t enough to keep her.” He sneers at me. “Go screw yourself, Nan. She never loved either of us. You were just smart enough to stop trying to change her mind.”