EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT what happened. But it’s what Rocco said that lingers with me. “We ain’t in it to survive.”
It sticks with me and it makes me jumpy under the skin. I can’t make myself go to school the next day. Can’t make myself stay in. I linger in the park in the morning, sit on the wall and eat an apple for lunch, walk the streets through the afternoon. Thinking about the bite of bricks on the backs of my thighs, the strange autumn sun, and the kinds of things like those that you tend to miss if you’re dead.
Surviving the shooting gives me street cred. The guys tip their hats to me; it seems like they’re for real. Not mocking. I think. It’s not like I’m a hero or anything. Just, I’ve stood on the front line for a moment and lived to tell the tale, and that means something to people around here.
I know it’s after-school time when the light is right and I start to see kids coming, wearing their book bags and the regular look of boredom that it always takes a few minutes of freedom to shake.
Sam appears among them, rushing toward me with his arms up like “Where have you been?”
“Here you are,” he says, stopping a foot away. Why is he stopping?
I cross my arms over my chest. “Here I am.”
“I heard what happened. You okay?”
There was a time I would have wanted to run to him, tell him the yes and the no and everything in between. A time that hasn’t quite passed.
“I’m okay.”
He touches my arm, the way he used to. “Really?”
I hold it together, tell myself that Sam, too, has faced bullets. Only for him, it all ended a lot worse. No right to complain in the face of that.
“Sure.”
“I’m glad you’re okay.” He shuffles his feet.
“Thanks, Sam,” I say. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“No,” he says.
“What?”
“I want to see you. I don’t want to guess.”
My face turns warm. “I want to see you, too.” But there are reasons . . .
Sam puts his arm around me, hugs me. I let my face rest on his shoulder for a moment before I pull away.
Are we together, or not? We don’t talk about it. We linger near each other, walking, not talking, and there’s solace in his presence. In our presence together.