“Wecannotleave without Bug! He’s fucking family, Di! He’d do the same for you!” Yoss shouted, shaking hard from the cold and trauma.
I wrapped an arm around his waist. I was worried he would collapse. “Di’s right, Yoss. It’s freezing out here. We should find somewhere warm. And we don’t want to deal with the police—”
“I’m not going anywhere until I find Bug. You guys can go. That’s fine. But Bug’s my brother. I won’t abandon him.” He looked down at me, his eyes bright. “Iwon’t,Imi,” he whispered.
I didn’t want to mention the very real possibility that Bug was still inside. That he wouldn’t be coming out again. Yoss wasn’t ready to hear that.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. Yoss gave me a sad smile, framing my face with frigid hands. He leaned down and kissed me. Not hard. Just enough.
“Thank you, Imi,” he murmured against my mouth.
“Shane, Karla, and I will head to the bridge and try to find someplace we can sleep for the night. We’ll ask around some more. But Yoss, I think you need to prepare yourself for—”
“Shut up, Di!” Yoss snarled and she shut her mouth in surprise. She didn’t say anything else. The three of them left and Yoss and I did another sweep around The Pit.
Still no Bug.
“We’ll wait here. This is where he’d look,” Yoss said, settling down on the other side of the parking lot, far enough away from the building to be safe, but we could still see everything that was going on.
I huddled down in my thin jacket and pulled my hood over my head. The snow was cold underneath me as I sat beside Yoss. He took a pair of gloves from his pocket and handed them to me.
“No, you need them,” I protested.
“I’d rather you be warm,” he insisted, pulling them onto my hands. He pulled me into his chest and we sat there, looking for our friend. While the snow fell and we froze slowly.
“He’ll show up.” Yoss sounded so convincing.
I didn’t believe him.
And I knew that, deep down, he didn’t believe himself.
Present
“Ihave met your mother before,” Yoss said as we drove through Lupton.
“What?”
“A long time ago.” Yoss fiddled with the stereo, stopping on an oldies station that was playing an Alice in Chains song I hadn’t heard in forever.
“You need to explain that one, Yoss,” I said.
“It was after you graduated from college. You had just moved back to Lupton.”
My hands gripped the steering wheel, hardly able to believe what I was hearing.
“I don’t understand,” I murmured weakly.
“I saw you that day, unloading boxes from your mom’s car. I spoke to your mom after you had gone inside. She said you were doing well. That you had a job in the city.” Yoss picked at a spot on his jeans.
“Why didn’t you wait to speak to me? To let me know you were okay?” I demanded, my voice rising. I was in shock. Total and complete shock.
“Look, Imi, you were doing good. You had graduated from college. You had a job. You were smiling and laughing. I remember your laugh most of all.” He paused and glanced out the window. “I was still on the streets. Still making money the only way I knew how. But you—you had done something with your life. I didn’t want to fuck that up.”
Yoss turned back to me, his eyes serious and stern. “Because I knew that if you saw me you’d move heaven and Earth to be with me. And the man I was then couldn’t allow that.”
I was so damn angry. Furious.
How could he have done this to me?
