“I know generally when they are.” Asher points a finger at the sky. “Cancer is one of the faintest.” He traces his finger along the sky like he always does when he’s trying to find something. Then he taps at the night sky, like it’s a framed map overhead. “Okay, there.”
I stare and stare as Asher traces a shape across the sky, but honestly, I don’t see anything but a mass of tiny lights.
“I’m a lost cause for constellations,” I say.
Asher laughs, and we go back to looking for meteors, counting twenty that night. We lie on our backs every night that week watching for meteors, tallying them up like stones dropped in our beach buckets. Even after the shower ends, we spend most nights on the grass, staring up at the sky, our fingertips so close we could touch.
And the next month, when it’s my birthday, I find a surprise on my bedroom ceiling. A constellation of my very own, mapped out with glow-in-the-dark stars. Cancer—my very own crab—one I love enough to keep as a pet all summer long.
DAY 7
Asher
I don’t remember getting into bed, but that’s where I wake up the next morning. In a cold puddle.
Holy crap, did I actually pee the freaking bed?
I’m still in the fog of sleep as I let my brain work through how I’m going to break it to my mother that her eighteen-year-old wet his bed. What a proud mom moment that will be. Could I get everything bagged up and thrown away, without being caught? I don’t even know where someone would buy new sheets around here. There’s one little strip of stores that includes the grocery store, a dollar store, a hobby shop, and a salon. It’s a forty-five-minute drive to an actual mall.
I am never drinking again.
The clock says 9:20. I hear voices in the kitchen and spring out of bed, feeling my head revolt against my body being upright. My stomach lurches and I give myself to the count of five before walking, to make sure I don’t puke. Two long strides from the bed and my door is locked with a click. I’m about ten minutes away from my mom barging in, insisting I get up and enjoy the day. I strip my clothes off and throw them on my bed, rolling my sheets into a pile and wrapping them in the crinkly plastic mattress pad underneath. How much would itcost to replace all of this? These aren’t even my sheets, they’re Nadine’s, so can I really just toss them?
I dig clothes out of my drawer and pull on a pair of basketball shorts. I haven’t figured out what to do with everything yet—how I can get it all to a Laundromat undetected—but making an appearance will buy me time. When I get into the kitchen my parents are sitting at the table. There’s a plate of cinnamon rolls in the center, and Sidney is in the chair to the right of my mom, wide-eyed and smiling.
“Good morning.” Her tone is so chipper it almost hurts.
“Morning,” I mutter. “My alarm didn’t go off.”
“I hate when that happens,” Sidney says. Her voice drips with mock sympathy.
“Sidney brought us extra cinnamon rolls,” Mom says, just before biting into one.
“I love them, but Dad doesn’t,” Sidney says. “We had way too many.” Sidney bites into one of the gooey circles. “Plus I wanted to see if you wanted to take a run with me. I was going to drive down to the trails that run by the river.”
“That’s a great idea,” Mom says. “You two will be teammates soon.”
Sidney’s eyes dart from my mom to me, but if she’s surprised that the two of us will both be swimming at our parents’ alma mater in a few months she doesn’t show it. I suppose even without talking we have our moms to keep us both flush with intel. I’m about to tell my future teammate there’s no way I’m running this morning, when I realize that this is my chance. My ticket out of the house for a few hours, no questions asked.
“Awesome.” I sound unintentionally ecstatic. Sidney’s surprised face makes the sharp pang my own voice just shot into my head almost worth it. She never expected me to say yes. “Give me a few minutes.”
Sidney turns back to my mother, who is peppering her with questions. Glancing at everyone at the table with theirattention focused on gooey rolls—and Sidney—I make my way to the sink. I’ve never been so glad to have her in my house. Quietly, I open the cabinet underneath and pull out a black trash bag. I don’t look back at the table. I clench it in my fist, close to my side, and walk as fast as I can toward the hallway without running. When I’m back in my room I stuff my pile of bedding into the black bag, pull on socks, shoes, and a T-shirt, and shove my bag of shame out the window. It lands on the gravel driveway that runs behind the house, wedged between it and Dad’s car. From the corner of the yard I see a flash of movement. Nadine is standing in the yard, looking between my head hanging out of the window and the giant bag now lying on the ground. I give her a tentative wave, trying to look casual—nothing to see here!—and retreat back into my bedroom.
“You ready?” I say as I walk back into the kitchen, grabbing a napkin and a cinnamon roll before bolting toward the door.
Sidney follows after me, keys in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “Feeling good this morning?” she says, her voice more annoyed than sympathetic.
“Fantastic,” I say.
“Youlookfantastic.”
I haven’t looked at myself at all this morning. I didn’t even stop in the bathroom. For all I know she covered my face in Sharpie last night.
“Do I have a dick on my face or something?”
“What?” She looks legitimately shocked. “No.” She shakes her head, her face twisted in disgust. “What am I, a ten-year-old boy? Give me some freaking credit.”
Sidney turns toward the car and I jog to the right. I pick up the garbage bag and haul it toward her car on the other side of the driveway.
