A knot swells in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” His hand slides close to the fence. I hate myself for not trusting myself to do the same. For recoiling from the cold. How is it so easy for him?
“Tell me something about you,” I say, desperate to chase away the brutal images the Guards burned into my mind.
“Like what?” He sounds tired, but not weary. More like sleepy in a dreamy sort of way.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying not to sound as irritable and desperate as I feel. “I feel like you know everything about me. But you’ve never told me anything about you.” All those ornaments I left him suddenly feel foolish. Jack was smart never to reveal too much to me. Every peek into our personal lives makes a Season vulnerable. Every insignificant detail—our habits, our dislikes, our history—is an angle that can be turned against us during a hunt.
He responds without a whiff of hesitation. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s your favorite band?”
“The Ramones.”
“Movie?”
“The Empire Strikes Back.”
“Food?”
“Tacos.”
“Not ice cream?”
“Stereotype.”
A smile takes hold. This time, it’s rooted someplace real and deep. Something relaxes inside me, the adrenaline slowly beginning to recede. “Coolest place you’ve ever been?”
“Vail,” he rasps. “You?”
“Nowhere.”
“Not a valid answer.”
“I thought this was about you.”
“This is about both of us.”
My smile from a moment ago is gone. I hug my knees to my chest.Dredge up a small piece of my soul I’ve never shared with him. “I was supposed to go to the Grand Canyon once.”
“What happened?”
“It was supposed to be my Make-A-Wish trip, but my parents freaked out any time I wasn’t hooked up to a monitor. At the last minute, they told my doctors I couldn’t go. Most days, they wouldn’t let me out of their sight to go to the bathroom. What about yours?”
I listen through a painful pause, trying to find a way to take back the question when he says, “Long story.”
“Siblings?” I ask, hoping Jack’s childhood wasn’t as lonely as he sounds.
“One. An older brother.”
“Have you seen him? You know, since?”
“Once,” he confesses. “He’s an investment banker in Cleveland. Divorced. A couple of kids in grad school. He was in town for a convention. He didn’t see me.”
“But you’re so easy to find.”
At this, he laughs out loud. Wheezes. “Touché,” he says, his voice thin.
