“Yeah?”
“As it’s a coming-out kind of day—”
I spun towards him. “You’re not!”
“Nah.” He gave me this sad smile. “But I do have something to tell you…”
I check the road for the fifty-first time and bolt to my feet. A beat-up old Nissan is trundling towards the church. My heart jerks against my ribs. I think back to the phone call this morning; the call where I could barely get the words out for crying.
“Ellis, please pick up… It’s not about us. It’s Mike… I don’t care if you don’t want me any more, but I have to talk to you. Mike. He’s…he’s not well. In fact, he’s really,reallysick. Please, El…Please.”
“Dylan?” Your voice when you finally,finallycalled me back, enough to collapse me. “Are you okay? What’s up with Mike?”
I didn’t want to say that scary word, but somehow I managed it, and El went so quiet I thought he’d hung up. Then:
“I want to see you, Dylan.”
“Where?”
“You choose.”
So I stand at my tombstone, not daring to move. The car brakes. El gets out. He comes around to the front and – I can’t help it – I run to him.
He catches me and holds me tight, hands gripping all across my shoulders and back and neck as if he’s terrified I might slip away. And I know right then that all the poison my brain’s been spewing this past week or so is bullshit. He loves me. He does. I pull back and take his face in my hands. He tries to look away but I won’t let him.
“What happened?”
“I’m sorry.” His face screws up and I thumb hot tears from his cheeks. “It was the first Christmas away from my family, from my sister, and…I don’t know, I kind of lost it for a few days. Can you forgive me?” He cups my hand and kisses my palm, then looks sort of disgusted with himself, as if this was a cheap ploy. “Shit, what am I saying?Iwouldn’t forgive me, so why should you?”
I want to believe him, I really do, but the way he vanished on me was just too extreme.
“I could have helped,” I say, turning and taking a couple of steps away. “Like I said in the billion messages I left, if you had something going on, I’d have been there for you.”
He catches up with me, grabs my hand. “I know. I know. I’ve been an idiot.”
“You have.”
We stand in silence for a time, just the skitter of leaves between our feet.
“Have I lost you?”
I shake my head and stretch onto tiptoes. A tear – his tear – slides between us when we kiss.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me anything else?”
“No. No thank you.” He nods. “And I won’t ever shut you out like that again. I promise.”
And although I know he’s holding something back, I also know that’s all I’m going to get. Because, just like his journal, El has this secret space inside him that I don’t think he will ever let me into. It hurts my heart, but I guess I can live with the majority of him in my life. And the honest truth is, I’m a coward – I’m frightened that if I push too hard I might lose him forever.
“So,” he breathes, “Mike.”
We sit among the tombstones and talk. I give him Mike’s diagnosis and he holds my hand as I rehearse all my hopes and fears for my best friend. El can’t make this better, he can’t guarantee that Mike will be okay, but he listens and comforts and in doing so hedoesmake it better. A little.
“We’ll see him through it,” he says. “He’s a strong mofo is Michael.”
After a while we get up and I collect the provisions I’ve brought along, just on the off chance that today would work out. El grins as I drop half the bags and trip over the rest, then glances up at the boarded doorway of the church.
“So what is this place?”
