Charlie wakes up coughing through the dark. I check my phone. Note the time. It’s been nine hours. I let in that tiny speck of light from the screen. No reception. No texts. No missed calls. Nothing. I should accept that my phone isn’t going to save us.
“I’m so thirsty,” Charlie says.
“Hungry.” A mumble. Because I’m tired, too.
I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and my stomach feels hollow like a carved-out jack-o’-lantern with all the juicy guts tossed aside. I picture the jack-o’-lanterns I carved as a kid and how, after days of baking in the sun, they’d keel over, caving in on themselves because their insides weren’t full enough to stay upright. I imagine the hours passing in here and my belly rotting from the inside out in the same way. Until I fold over. Empty. Lifeless.
I want a pillowcase full of Halloween candy. Caramel apples. Buttered popcorn.
Halloween means big houses by the beach decorated like haunted pirate ships. With smoke machines and strobe lights and full-size candy bars. My mom would take me door-to-door in my Wonder Woman costume. Or later, in middle school, when my friends and I would come up with a group costume, our parents would let us go out alone. It felt like freedom to walk from one block to the next without our parents trailing behind us, waiting on the sidewalk with their flashlights while we knocked on doors.
Last Halloween, I took care of Mila at a Halloween party. It was in Harper Scott’s backyard. There was a keg and a firepit and a hammock and a crowd. There was a koi pond, too. Mila dumped a can of beer into the water, giggling hysterically.
“Here, fishy fishy,” she cooed, kicking up the water with her fingertip like it was a touch pool at the aquarium. “Wanna get drunk with me? Because Ruby won’t.”
“Stop! Do you want to kill them?”
She stomped her foot, and the spiked heel that went with her cat costume sank into the grass. She lost her balance. Toppled over. Landed on her knees. Spilled the rest of her beer. A crowd gathered because she wouldn’t get up. Couldn’t. She stayed there on all fours and laughed.
Until she was crying.
Everyone watched as she sank onto her back. Balled up into the fetal position.
“What’s wrong?” I’d asked. Panicked.
She pulled me down next to her like she was going to tell me a secret. Like she was finally going to explain what it was she was always trying to numb. She put her hand on my cheek. Looked at me like I was the only one she could spill her truth to.
“What?” I said. “Tell me.”
Her eyes glistened. Watery. Then she burst into laughter. “I can’t feel my feet. Will you carry my shoes?”
“What?” I shook my head. I’d missed something. Surely.
“My shoes.”
She kicked her feet up and down. I was afraid one of her spiked heels would go flying and take someone’s eye out. So I yanked them off. Pulled her up. Made her put her arm around me as she stumbled to the car.
I’d wanted to put a wall up. A barrier that’d block our classmates from seeing her like this. But really? It was just another party. Just another weekend. And no matter how much I tried to protect Mila, everyone had seen her like this too many times to count.
I took her to her house that night. Tucked her into her bed and settled into a sleeping bag on the floor so I could keep an eye on her. I lied to her mom when she knocked on Mila’s bedroom door. I told her she wasn’t feeling well. It was the same excuse as always.
“A bunch of people got sick from this onion dip at the party,” I’d said.
Mila’s mom seemed like she’d believed me. So again, I questioned myself, wondering if I was overreacting. If Mila’s own mom couldn’t see a problem, then why should I be so concerned?
But maybe it was easier to pretend not to see things than to see the truth.
“My toes are freezing,” I say to Charlie. “I need something better than flip-flops.”
“Flip-flops in February. So typical.” He coughs, then wheezes over his breath. He sucks in air. It doesn’t sound good.
“Charlie!”
He coughs some more.
“Charlie!” I say again, that rise of panic in my throat.
He finally sputters to a stop. Like the earthquake.
“Yeah. Still here.” He grunts. “I promise I’m not going anywhere unless you do.”