"Stop." I close my eyes against the pain that pulses with every heartbeat. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault, Ivan. None of it."
"You got hurt because of me. He was hitting me and you stopped him and—"
"I got hurt because Henderson is a monster," I interrupt. "That's the only reason. That's the only person to blame. I would do it again, Ivan. I would do it a hundred times. A thousand times. I couldn't just stand there and watch him hurt you like that. I couldn't."
We sit there for a long time, leaning against each other, Ivan crying and me trying to breathe through the pain that won't stop, that shows no sign of stopping. My arm is swelling now, I can feel it getting bigger inside my sleeve, pressing against the fabric.
The throbbing has settled into a constant, nauseating pulse that makes my stomach turn. I've had bruises, cuts, welts—but I've never broken a bone before. I didn't know it would hurt this much. I didn't know pain could be this big, this all-consuming.
"What are we going to do?" Ivan finally asks, and his voice is small and scared, like a little kid's. "You can't hide this. Your arm is... it's really broken. People will see. You won't be able to hide it."
He doesn't finish, but he doesn't need to. I know what my arm is. Broken. Visibly, obviously broken. The kind of injury you can't explain away with a lie about falling down stairs or running into a door. The kind of injury that demands explanations, that triggers mandatory reporting, that brings the whole system crashing down.
"I have to go to school tomorrow." Each word feels like it costs something, uses up energy I don't have. "If I don't show up, someone will come looking eventually. Foster kids don't get to just disappear. They keep track."
"But when they see your arm—" Ivan starts.
"I know," I interrupt, opening my eyes and looking at him, at his tear-stained face and his bleeding back and his terrified eyes. "I know, Ivan. They're going to know. There's no hiding this. And when they know, they're going to call social services. And social services is going to come get us. Both of us."
"Both of us?" he repeats, and I can see the hope flickering in his eyes, desperate and fragile.
"Both of us," I confirm. "But they're going to put us in different places. That's how it works. They split you up when there's abuse. Make it easier to manage. Easier to process."
Ivan's crying has stopped, replaced by something worse—a kind of terrified stillness, like an animal caught in headlights, frozen in the moment before impact.
"No. No, there has to be another way. We can run. Tonight. We can just leave and go somewhere and—"
"And go where?" I ask gently, hating that I have to crush this hope. "We're kids, Ivan. We have no money, no car, nowhere to go. They'd find us in a day, maybe less. And it would be worse when they did. Trust me."
I hate that I'm right. I hate that there's no way out of this, no escape route. All those months of surviving, of learning the rules, of keeping our heads down and protecting each other—and in the end it didn't matter. One moment of weakness, one burst of rage I couldn't control, one decision to protect him instead of letting him suffer, and I've destroyed everything.
But I didn't have a choice.
"Then what do we do?" Ivan whispers.
I take a breath, trying to think through the pain that's making everything fuzzy and distant. The pain in my arm is making it hard to think clearly, but I push through it, because this is important. This might be the most important thing I ever say to him.
"We remember," I say firmly. "We remember everything we practiced. Every detail. Every fact. Because they're going to separate us tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever they come for us. And it might be years before we can find each other again. Years, Ivan. But we won't give up. We will find each other. I promise you. I swear on everything I have. I will find you. No matter how long it takes. No matter where they send us. No matter what happens between now and then."
"Jason Michael Morrow," Ivan says immediately, and his voice is trembling but the words are clear, perfect. "March fifteenth. Macon, Georgia. Rebecca Morrow, maiden name Thorne, scar on the left hand between the thumb and finger. Safe place is a beach with white sand and blue water."
"Ivan Allen Collins," I respond, closing my eyes again because looking at him hurts almost as much as my broken arm, because seeing his face makes this too real. September twenty-third. Atlanta. Birthmark on the right shoulder blade shaped like a kidney bean."
"A blob," he corrects automatically, and despite everything, despite the pain and the fear and the terrible knowledge of what's coming, I almost smile.
"A kidney bean blob," I agree. "What did I say to you the first night we met?"
"You can breathe," he answers.
"That's right." I find his hand with my good one and hold on tight, squeezing hard enough to hurt. "You can breathe, Ivan. No matter what happens tomorrow. No matter where they take you. No matter how bad it gets. You can breathe and you can survive and you can wait for me to find you. Because I will. I swear to God, I will find you and we will be together again. I promise."
He squeezes my hand back, his fingers lacing through mine, and we sit there in the dark, holding onto each other, listening to the silence of the house around us. My arm throbs with every heartbeat, a constant reminder of what's broken.
Tomorrow, I'm going to walk into school with a bone broken at an unnatural angle and no good explanation, and everything is going to fall apart. But right now, in this moment, Ivan is beside me and I can feel his heartbeat through our clasped hands and that's enough.
"Try to sleep," I tell him, even though I know neither of us will be able to, not really. "Tomorrow is going to be hard. The hardest day yet."
"I can't leave you alone," he protests. "What if you need something? What if your arm gets worse? What if—"
