“Ah.” She closes her eyes and touches a silver cross hanging from her neck. “God keep his soul. It is too awful.”
“How’s Jacob?” Antony asks me. “Is he okay?”
There’s something in his tone, something a lot like guilt. Antony was trying to overtake Jacob when they crashed, I remember. But even I know it isn’t his fault.
“He’s still critical,” I say.
Fear skitters over his face, but in an instant, his mother is by his side, clutching his hand. “We’ll pray for that boy. It was a terrible accident. No one’s fault.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Antony’s mom shoots me a swift, approving look. Then she strokes Antony’s hair and kisses his forehead, and I busy myself signing autographs for the kids while Antony clears his throat a few times.
“Are you good friends with the other boy, Jacob?” Antony’s mother asks me.
I open my mouth to lie, but instead part of the truth slips out. “We’re friends, yeah,” I mumble.
“They’re really tight,” Antony tells his mother. “Jacob’s always talking him up.”
It’s probably the nicest thing I’ve heard since the crash. A lump forms in my throat, sudden and painful. Antony’s mother makes it ten times worse by swooping in to give me a tight hug.
“Poor darling,” she says. “You need anything, you come to us, yes?”
She holds my face between her palms until I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She nods. “Now come with me, help me get the rest of the food out of the car.”
“Mom,” Antony protests. “He’s got things to do, don’t make him help.”
But I don’t mind. I follow Antony’s mother out through the waiting room and into the elevator, and the whole time she talks nonstop about how she’s always been terrified something like this would happen, and how awful it must be for Ellis Parrot’s parents. It should be hard to hear, but the whole time she has her arm wrapped tightly around mine, and it’s like she’s holding me together, holding me up.
“That other boy is going to be okay, too,” she tells me, as we get back onto the elevator with our arms full of Tupperware. “I just know it.”
Then she starts talking about Brazilian desserts, and how have I never tried them before, and what on earth have I been eating instead? She doesn’t seem to expect an answer, as if she knows it’s just the rhythm of her voice that’s helping me. She holds on to myarm again, and I hold on to her hopeful words. When we get back to the room, she releases me and swoops in to give Antony a hug.
“I love you,” she says firmly, kissing his cheek.
Antony looks slightly embarrassed, but he hugs her back just as tightly. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Love you, too.”
Hearing the words physically hurts, like someone’s clamped a vise around my chest. Antony’s family tries to offer me more food, but I back away from them, my voice growing thin. “No, sorry, I have to go now, really.”
“You come back again soon, yes?” Mrs. Costa says.
“Promise?” Antony’s little cousin, Pedro, adds.
“Yes,” I croak. “I promise.”
I escape to the staff bathroom again, but this time, although my throat is aching terribly, the tears won’t come. I grip the edge of the sink and take shallow, unsteady breaths. Mrs. Costa’s words are spinning through my mind.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
8
Sorry?
I told Jacob I loved him once before, but it didn’t count.
We’d been together for about four months, and I was still amazed at how easy it was to be with him. I didn’t have to pretend to be chatty or funny or clever. For whatever reason, he found me interesting just the way I was. He told me that all the time, always prompted by the most random things, like when he saw the way I arranged Nespresso pods (in a spiral on the center of my kitchen table—don’t ask why, I just liked the way it felt taking one after another, watching the spiral grow smaller), or when he found out I donated two thousand dollars a month to the animal shelter down the street from my house.
