“We’re all mad here,” Peter says.
“I noticed,” I say.
“But we aren’t what’s keeping you here.”
“Is that why you gave me the bike? So I’d see that?”
“We aren’t your jailers.”
“I knew that before. Really didn’t need the object lesson.”
“You...you don’t blame me?” He sounds tentative, oddly vulnerable.
“Should I? Anything you aren’t telling me?” I look at him, his perfect chiseled face and his beautiful black eyes, his mysterious tattoos and his ever-present black trench coat. If I’d left, I’d have missed him. He walked out of that dust storm and into my life, into my heart. Knowing this doesn’t make my failure any easier.
He shakes his head. “Most...blame me anyway. I am the one who brought them out of the void. I saved them. But all they see is that I brought them here, not home. They don’t see that it’s better to be here with hope than to fade away without hope.”
“I don’t blame you. Never did.” I blame myself. I blame the test results that I wasn’t ready to hear, the diagnosis that I knew was coming that I didn’t want to know. I blame my cowardice. I’m the idiot who didn’t turn left.
He smiles, so full of light and joy that I have to look away. I can’t match his smile. I feel an ache in my rib cage like a fist. The same invisible fist is crammed in my throat.
I don’t expect him to tell me what to do. But I wish he would. I wish Mr. Rabbit would pipe up with his wisdom and save me from despair or insanity or whatever is supposed to happen to me next. But no one says anything.
We watch the sun set.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Peter jumps to his feet. “I’ve watched you yearn to leave. Now I’m going to show you why you should want to stay.” He holds out his hand.
I take it.
* * *
“Buttons. Paper clips. Socks.” Peter hops and leaps over the various lost items that litter the desert floor. Claire skips behind him, as if it’s a hopscotch game. “You think that Lost is a junkyard of crap like this.”
“All evidence agrees with that.” I step over a snow boot and then several flip-flops and think,Don’t need snow boots in the heat, and flip-flops are impractical with all the little metal objects around...I stop myself. Jesus, I’m doing it again. Exactly when did I start to think like a scavenger? Like Peter. Maybe this is what I need to do, if I can’t leave. Quickly, I shove that thought away before it sweeps over and drowns me.
“I have another present for you,” he says.
Claire sighs happily. “I love presents.”
“For her, munchkin.” Peter ruffles her hair.
She fake pouts. “You like her better than me.” Then she sticks her tongue out at him. “That’s okay, I like her better than you, too.”
He laughs.
The three of us clamber to the roofs. I still don’t like to walk across the boards of not-secured-at-all timber, but I am faster at scooting across than I used to be. At least I know better than to look down. Or think about splinters. Or think about anything, like the possibility of never leaving. Carefully, I take that thought, wrap it in emptiness, and bury it deep in my mind.
Peter has left boards on top of many of the houses around Lost. He’s connected others by rope ladders and even zip lines. On the zip lines, Claire has to restrain herself from whooping in delight at the rush of wind. Usually, so do I. Today, though, my heart feels too heavy.
Keeping to the outskirts, we head farther south. We don’t have boards or zip lines here, and the houses are too spaced out anyway. We scramble down to earth and keep to the shadows to stay out of sight. Thanks to my long bike ride, the sun has nearly set. Shadows are deep and wide, and it’s not difficult to stay shrouded in darkness.
At last, after nearly an hour, we come to a red barn.
Peter shoves the massive door open a crack, and we slip inside. Except for the dying light that spills through the crack, it’s dark inside. There are no windows, and the spaces between the boards don’t let in much light, especially when there’s so little daylight left. Peter pushes the door shut.
A small candlelike flame flickers on in the palm of Peter’s hand. It’s a battery-operated candle, the kind used inside jack-o’-lanterns or in votive candle holders in restaurants that don’t want to use actual candles. It sheds a flickering orangish light on white bedsheets that cover the walls of the barn.
Peter strides forward, pulling the sheets one by one off the walls. And I gasp.
