The black Camaro with the tinted windows rolled away fromthecurb.
Gabriel no longer stood by the drop-offpoint.
Adrian broke into asprint.
He breached the last row of parked cars and burst onto the street in front of the mall. A car horn blared. Brakes screeched. The front bumper of an encroaching car nudged Adrian’s leg, but he kept moving. The black Camaro was close, but it was gaining speed. Adrian leapt for it, but his fingertips only grazed the brakelights.
The Camaro drove away, its paper license plate flapping upward in the wind,unreadable.
Stunned, Adrian watched it go. Someone was yelling at him, he realized, and someone else was leaning on their horn. He was blockingtraffic.
Hedidn’tcare.
Gabrielwasgone.
“Get the hell off the road!” a man shouted. “Do youwanttogethit?”
No.
But Adrian couldn’t bring himself to look at anything else than the brake lights disappearing on the horizon. The Camaro made a turn and disappeared around the back ofthemall.
Someone grabbed Adrian’s shoulder and pushed himaside. “Kid!”
Adrian’s heel caught the edge of the sidewalk, and he stumbled. Whoever had him by the shoulder corrected his course and set himstraight.
“Kid!” This time the utterance was a little more forceful, but Adrian couldn’t stop looking at the spot where he’d seen the Camaro for the last time. “Hey,kid!I came to check on you to see if you were okay. I think Ihityou.”
“I’m fine.” Another lie. Another rotten word left to fester inside of him. “Thanks for checking uponme.”
“Weirdo.”
The hand parted from Adrian’s shoulder. Footsteps distanced themselves from his position. For a while, Adrian stood alone by the side of the street, too shocked to know what to do. Desperation and hope rose as one and spread hideous notions through his head—thoughts that were toxic, but that he couldn’t help butclingto.
Maybe Gabrielhadgone into the mall. There was a chance Adrian had missed seeing him step away from the car. If Adrian could only find him, they could leave together. It was going to be okay. Their parents didn’t even needtoknow.
Hand shaking, Adrian took his phone from his pocket and sent Gabrielatext.
I’m sorry I said those things to you. I didn’t mean them. I don’t think I want to go to the mall tonight after all. Come meet me at the front doors instead and we’llgohome.
The text sent and was received by Gabriel’s phone, but it wasn’t markedasread.
Adrian watched the conversation for the next fifteen minutes, too jittery and nervous to do anything else. Every time his screen began to dim, he worked his thumb across it and brought it back to life. To let the screen turn off felt wrong, as though by letting it happen, Adrian was accepting that Gabriel would never respond. If he waited just a little while longer, he’d see the speech bubble appear in the bottom right corner. Gabriel would send him one of his stupid frustrated emojis, then come out to join Adrian by the doors. They’d go hometogether.
Right?
Right?
An hour and a half later, seated on the edge of a flower bed not far from the front doors, Adrian sent Gabrielanothertext.
This is a prank, right? I’m going to go home and you’re going to be there waiting for me. I’m gonna kick your ass when I findyou. :P
Another half hour went by. The texts remainedunread.
Heart heavy, Adrian looked up from his phone and let the screen turn off. The parking lot had emptied out. The mall wasclosed.
Gabriel hadn’t come tofindhim.
He slipped his phone into his pocket and trudged back across the parking lot, too numb to do anything else. In a daze, he sank into his seat and started the engine. The smell of Gabriel’s omega—still so new to Adrian’s nose that it stood out against the pine-scented air freshener suspended from his rearview mirror—clung to thepassengerseat.
