Page 7 of Indigo Sky

Joe, who I hadn’t realized until this moment was still there, nudged my hand with his. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Nobody’s making you leave.”

He was right. I mean, nobody was kickingmeout. But I shook my head because Iwantedto go. My only reason for coming had hurt me—she’d betrayed me without even realizing it, as far as I knew at the time—and the only reason I’d stay was leaving.

“It’s okay,” I said, turning around. “I don’t wanna be here anyway.”

***

Now, at this point, you’re probably thinking that I was a pretty naive moron. And I don’t want to give anything away, so … let’s just say, you’re probably right.

But understand something, okay?

I was akid. A moody, hormonal, disabled kid, who was trying desperately to find some comfort in his own skin again. The last thing I wanted to think—no, the last thing I could consider—was that the only friend I had could be manipulating me in any way whatsoever. The last thing I could fathom was that he could force himself onto a girl I liked for his own bizarre, twisted benefit.

But little did I know, that was only the first strike of the freakin’ proverbial matchstick because not long after that came the fire.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Do you ever think about dying?”

“What?” Startled, I glanced at Nate to watch his bare feet dragging lazily through the pool water. That wasn’t the kinda question you expected to come from the mouth of a kid your age. “Why would I think about that?”

He had that faraway look on his face he sometimes got. Like he was staring at something that I couldn’t see, a ghost or whatever. My dog, Ralphie, did that sometimes, and it freaked me out, but it freaked me out more when Nate did it.

“Because you’re gonna die one day,” he said, completely void of all emotion.

What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

I swallowed and shifted uncomfortably at the edge of the pool, unsure of myself or my response or if I should even respond at all, even as I replied, “So?”

“We’reallgonna die one day,” he went on, like it wasn’t at all messed up that he was saying it in the first place. “You, me … your mom and dad …”

It bothered me more to think about Mom and Dad gone than ceasing to exist myself, and I swept my hand through the pool to splash him in his stupid face.

“Shut the hell up, okay? I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

The corner of his lips twitched, and I thought I might’ve heard him chuckle beneath his breath—the sick bastard—but he nodded.

“Okay.”

Sometimes, Nate would get so fixated on one thing or another, and he struggled to let it go. Like this one time, he’d wanted to see if he could throw an apple hard enough to bust it against a tree. It was stupid as hell, but, hey, kids do stupid stuff, right? And a normal kid might’ve grabbed one apple and given it a shot but, nope, not Nate. He had wasted an entire bag of apples on this one asinine adventure and was later pissed that he didn’t have any apples. That was just how he was though. But this time, with the death talk, he dropped it—thank Christ.

And it wasn't that I didn't understand mortality or that I hadn't experienced death. Two of my grandparents had died by that point. I’d had a brush with death myself when that firework hit me in the face, even if I hadn’t realized it at the time. But that didn't mean I didn't struggle with the concept of it, you know—especially at fifteen. Like the finality of it, or the idea that, one day, I'd be in this world alone, without my mom or dad.

Assuming I didn't die first.

Shaken up by Nate's choice of topic and my own intrusive thoughts, I turned away from my friend and glanced toward the early June sky, streaked with streams of fluffy white clouds. It'd been hot in New York—so hot that Dad had insisted on opening the pool before Memorial Day—and it had been nice, coming home from school and jumping in the water to cool off before drowning in homework. Nate appreciated it, too, I bet, even if he never said it.

"I think I'm gonna drop out next year," he mused casually.

He was full of surprises today, and I turned abruptly. "What? Why?"

He laughed at me. "Come on, dude. I hate school. I suck, teachers suck, the assholes in class suck. Everything sucks. What's the point when I'm failing anyway?"

He wasn't wrong. I didn't care for school either. The past couple of years, I'd barely scraped by with my grades, and that was after hours of studying. I didn't think I was stupid—Mom and Dad insisted I wasn't—but my teachers sure as hell made me feel as though I were. I imagined they didn't make Nate feel much better about himself when his grades were even worse than mine.

"What would you do instead?" I asked, wondering if maybe I should drop out too.

Mom and Dad would probably kill me if I did, but … maybe Nate was right. What was the point?

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