Mom said Billy and Mrs. Drum were leaving first thing in the morning, so we got up at the crack of dawn to meet them outside and say our good-byes. Seely had stopped over the night before on her way home. I wondered what they had said to each other—what I was going to say.
The windstorm had ripped up the street pretty good overnight, and I had to jump over a huge tree branch lying across the road to get to the moving truck. The sun was still too low to be seen, and only sharp rays of light poked through the houses, casting spotlights, making one side of the street look like a stage and the other like the dark audience. The moving van was in the shadows, but with our moms’ eyes on us, I felt like Billy and I were standing in one of the spotlights.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked.
“No,” Billy admitted. “I hope it has a cool name.”
“Yeah, as long as it’s not Monkey’s Eyebrow.”
Billy lowered his gaze. “I don’t want to go there anymore,” he whispered.
“Nah, you probably want to go to Detroit, right?” There was acid in my voice, and I wished I could start over. This wasn’t how I wanted to leave it with Billy, but I was so pissed.
I’d been up all night trying to figure out who to blame—Billy’s mom for being paranoid, his dad for being a monster, myself for giving a damn. But I kept coming back to Billy D. I wished he’d never called his dad—wished he’d never even mentioned his dad.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not going to give you any shit, okay? I just … I think maybe you should stop looking for your dad.”
“One of those doctors—the ones Mom made me talk to—says I’m not really looking for my dad.”
“Oh no?”
Billy looked up. “He says I’m looking for answers.”
“Sounds like a smart guy.”
“I don’t think so.” Billy wrinkled his nose.
“Why not?”
“Because how can I be looking for answers when I don’t know the questions?”
Not questions, I thought. Question. Singular. Just one: Why do people hit?
Billy had been asking me that in his own way practically since we met. It’d just taken me a long time to figure it out. And apparently, Billy still hadn’t.
“Then what do you think?” I asked.
Billy shrugged. “I think the doctor wears funny glasses.”
“Well, um …” I coughed and looked at my feet. “I’m going to miss your ugly mug.”
“I’m not ugly,” Billy said. “I’m handsome. Everybody says so. They say, ‘Oh, he’s so handsome.’”
“Dude, when old ladies say it, it doesn’t count.”
“Billy, hurry up,” Mrs. Drum called. “You’re going to make Dane late for school.”
I started to let out an empty laugh, but it died on my lips when I saw the expression on her face. She was beaming.
“Dane’s back in,” she said, more to Mom than to me.
“What?” Mom and I said at the same time.
Mrs. Drum bounced a little on her toes, looking so much like Billy and so unlike herself that I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
“I wrote a letter to the school board, and I spoke personally to Principal Davis. I explained the trouble Billy had caused trying to run away.” Her smile faltered for a second as she shot Billy a look he shrank under. Then her face turned to mine, and her expression melted into something apologetic. “And I explained how you skipped school because you were trying to protect him. Principal Davis says the board was very moved.” She looked now at Mom. “I meant to tell you yesterday. I wanted to surprise you, but I got … distracted. The school is supposed to call you sometime today.”
Mom threw her arms around Mrs. Drum, and I didn’t have to see her face to know she was crying. When she pulled back, she held Mrs. Drum’s arms tightly in her hands. “You won’t reconsider?”
“No.” Mrs. Drum’s smile disappeared, and she looked again like the worried, frazzled woman I’d come to recognize. “I should have never come here to begin with. So close to home—stupid—I just thought—”
“Shh.” Mom wrapped her in another hug, and now they were both sniffling.
It was obvious to me now that Mom was losing a friend, too. But I wondered if they would have become friends without Billy and me getting into so much trouble—what everything would have been like if we’d never gone looking for Billy’s dad. Billy and I could have played video games and watched movies and made fun of Mark and hung out with Seely. Then again, would we have ever hung out with Seely if we hadn’t needed her computer for the dad hunt? Would Billy and I have even been friends if he hadn’t needed me for that search? There was no way of knowing, and I was too selfish to really wish I could go back. Somehow, I had come out ahead. Now Billy was leaving empty-handed, while I got to stay and hang out with Seely and get a job and watch Mom finally spend those lottery tickets. Billy was losing everything, and all I was losing was Billy.
But at the moment, that felt like everything.
“Will you be able to call me?” I asked.
Billy’s face lit up. “I have your number,” he whispered. He reached down to his backpack, which was lying open at his feet, and pulled out the atlas. He moved, putting my big frame between him and the moms so they couldn’t see, and cracked open the back cover. I saw he’d resealed the torn paper with tape, save for the corner. He folded that corner back now in a triangle, and two edges of folded paper peeked out from underneath.
Billy inched the two bits of paper out and unfolded one. Inside he had printed “Dane Washington” with my phone number below it. I smiled.
“I have Seely’s, too,” he said.
He tucked my number away carefully, then pressed the second slip of folded paper into my palm. I started to open it, but Billy stopped me.
“Don’t look yet!”
“Why not?”
“Because you might not like it, and I don’t want to know if you don’t like it, because I really, really, really want you to like it.”
“Okay, okay.” I laughed. “I’ll look at it later.” I stuck the paper in my back pocket. “I have something for you, too.”
From another pocket, I pulled out a slim plastic case with a DVD inside. I handed it to Billy.
“The Karate Kid,” I told him. “Sorry I don’t have the original box. It’s just the disc, but it still plays and all—”
“It’s awesome!”
Billy dropped the atlas back into his pack and grasped the DVD case in both hands. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said. My cheeks felt hot. “Just remember. You are Mr. Miyagi,” I said.
Billy tore his eyes from the case to meet mine. “No,” he said seriously. “You’re the Miyagi.”
The first curve of the sun appeared over Billy’s roof, signaling it was time to go. I started nodding like an idiot and backing up with my hands in my pockets.
“Well …,” I drifted off.
“Yeah,” Billy said.
We locked eyes for one more second.
“Okay, then,” I said.
Billy grinned. “Okay, then.”
Not five minutes later, the moving van was pulling away with Mom and me in the middle of the street waving like you see people do in the movies. I dropped my hand and stuffed it back in my pocket, feeling stupid.
• • • X • • •
Walking to school alone sucked more than I thought it would. I mean, I’d been walking to that damn high school by myself for three years. There was no reason it should suddenly bother me now.
But I guess it doesn’t matter how long you walk alone; once you get used to someone traveling next to you, you sort of come to count on it. And once it’s gone, no matter how hard you try, you can’t remember what it felt like to have no one there. Now, instead of just me, it felt like me and the big empty space next to me.
The sun beat down on me as I walked, and for the first time that whole stormy spring, I wished it would rain. I was about to take the turn to cut through the gardens when a horn honked, startling me out of my own thoughts.
Somehow, I expected to see a red Mustang with some asshole behind the wheel and maybe across the street a slightly stooped-over kid with a blank expression who would watch while I taught the asshole a lesson. But what I saw instead was surprising enough to chase the memories away for the moment.
“Get in!” Seely said, leaning over the passenger seat to call out the window.
“What is this?” I smiled, despite my sour mood.
This was no Mustang, and there was no asshole behind the wheel—only a beat-up, old Cadillac and the girl who reminded me I hadn’t actually lost everything.
“This,” Seely said, opening the door from the inside and waving me in, “is all mine.”
I dropped into the passenger seat. “You finally settled?”
“Well, Dad said if I made any more money, he wasn’t going to be able to afford to match me dollar-for-dollar, so it was time. Picked her up this morning.” Seely caressed the dashboard. “Like her?”
“Love her,” I said.
An awkward moment of silence followed, which I covered up with a cough and stammered, “Um, so … anyway … uh, how did you know to pick me up or—”
“Billy said you might need a ride today,” she said softly.
“Oh.”
Seely put the car in motion while I stared out the window at the sidewalks moving slowly past. I thought of the tread Billy and I had worn in those sidewalks over the last few months. I hoped wherever he wound up that he wouldn’t be lonely. I hoped he would find a doctor who spoke his language and could help him figure out both the answers and the questions. I hoped he’d meet someone with a skateboard and someone else who could walk him to school. I chuckled to myself thinking of who that person might be and how the poor sucker had no idea what he was in for. I almost pitied the guy—and envied him.
I shifted in my seat and felt a crinkle in my pocket. I reached back and pulled out the little folded piece of paper from Billy.
“What’s that?” Seely asked.
I opened it without answering and read two short lines followed by a name and an address.
Dane,
This is your dad.