Outside, the pelting rain had died down, leaving behind only a chilly drizzle. I walked beside Lily, arm around her shoulder, hers tentatively around my waist. Distantly—through the alcohol and my nerves about what Lily and I had done together—I wished I'd worn a coat so I could offer it to her; she only had that purple twill coat, no hood. Her hair fell in wet strands around her face.

  "Where do you live?" I said. "I'll walk you."

  "Higgins. You really don't have to, though."

  "It's no problem at all," I said. "That's kind of on my way, anyways."

  "Okay," she said, sliding into me as though it was natural, as though we had been together for months.

  We walked that way—silently, comfortably—until we reached her house. I vaguely knew the area, had an old friend from swimming lessons who lived around here. Her house was one half of a duplex, but the details were hard to parse in the middle of the night.

  Lily hugged me. "Thanks for walking me, prom date."

  "Any time, prom date," I said.

  We shared a small ugh and then she kissed me. I watched her until she slipped inside and headed towards my own house. First, a pn: Rachael. I pulled out my phone and called her.

  "It's midnight," she said, sounding sleepy.

  "Go into my room," I said. "Open my window. I'll owe you."

  Second, implementation of said pn: Muttering compints, Rachel did as instructed. I made it home within ten minutes and climbed the tree as Talon had done the other night.

  "Hey, thanks a lot," I whispered, shutting the window softly behind me.

  Her hair was down, hitting below her shoulder bdes. She was wearing a Clueless t-shirt which hung below her bum, and her pid pajama shorts, feet tucked into fuzzy socks. "Mhm," she said. "Now let's talk about that favor."

  "Right now? I'm tired. I'm… oops," I said, stumbling while untying my damp shoe. "Drunk. Shit. Too much wine."

  "I know, brainiac. I have a working olfactory system. Wait a second."

  She crept downstairs and came back with a cinnamon roll that Mom had made st Sunday afternoon. I sat on the bed, pulling off my shoes and wet socks. I pulled the roll apart, grateful for the sugary carb. I chewed heartily, ripping off big chunks with my teeth, licking my fingers.

  Rachel lowered herself into my desk chair, grimacing as I tore messily through the cinnamon bun. She began braiding her hair. "You said anything," she said.

  Right. The favor. "What is it?" I said through a big mouthful. With my free hand, I slipped my phone out of my pocket—nothing more from Talon—and set my arm for seven.

  "You said anything," she repeated. She secured the end of the braid with a pink estic.

  "What do you want? I can't get you alcohol; I can barely get it for myself. It's all Marty. And Rob. And a mustache. Look, I'll only do one of your Bio reports if it's short. You know I have a ton of stuff to do before prom."

  "Well, it's kind of about that." She started tugging on the bottom of her Clueless shirt. "About prom."

  "Hurry up, Rach, I'm exhausted."

  "Is it all right if I ask Talon if I can go with him?"

  My eyes shot to her face: she was blushing faintly. I shook my head. "What? No."

  "Come on, Ry, you told me anything. Does he have a date?"

  I hesitated, thinking. I finished eating my bun, wiped my hands on my jeans. I was too drunk for a proper assessment. But my murky line of thinking went something like this: Talon had condoms in his backpack. There was that girl from before, Georgia, who had a crush. Did they even talk? Talon had barely been at school. Was he seeing someone? Who would he be going to prom with? He didn't seem like the prom type. He liked to dance, but he loathed high school.

  "He doesn't, does he?" Rachel said. "Please? Please?" She sounded very much her fifteen years of age right then.

  "Quiet," I said, nodding at the door. "They'll hear you."

  Rachel swirled on the chair, watching my face. She looked wide awake.

  "I don't care," I said finally, not thinking about it, sure Talon would say no. "Ask whoever you want. I need to sleep."

  It wasn't until second block the next day that I felt like I was going to puke. Sweat popped up on my forehead and neck, my lower back. I tried to focus on css but saw Casey and Marty gncing at me and trying not to ugh. Why did they seem so unaffected? I was pretty sure Marty was hungover himself, but he probably enjoyed the thrill of bancing his nausea and talent for answering css questions with accuracy.

  I hadn't been so drunk that I forgot what happened st night but still, specific moments rattled around in my mind, disjointed, muddled. Kissing Lily in Rob's bed. Hitting our teeth and the metallic taste of her braces. The feel of her nipple in my mouth, how she moaned when I flicked my tongue over it, the weight of her breast in my hand. And how she'd wanted my shirt off, slung her leg over mine. My head ached. I traced the memory in my mind once, twice, three times, turning it over, trying to see what was wrong with me. Why my body hadn't responded the way I hoped it would or at least not with the enthusiasm I anticipated. Again, the images: Lily, pretty, smiling at me. Her hands on me. Removing her bra. And me not able to give her what she wanted, not exactly.

  At the break between csses, Casey, Marty, and I bolted across the street, arms up to shield us from the persistent rain. From the corner convenience store we bought energy drinks, some candy, a protein bar each. The sugar and fat and caffeine brought me back to life.

  "Holy shit," I said, through a mouthful of a peanut butter and oatmeal bar, "I thought I was going to barf."

  "Yeah, dude," Casey said, "you looked pale in css. Paler than usual."

  Marty jumped up on one of the picnic tables out front of school. We had only another minute maybe before the bell rang. He downed his drink, belched, and then squashed the can. "What did you and Lily do?" he said. "You didn't answer my text!"

  "You were in Rob's room for a while," Casey said, looking sideways at me.

  "When did her tits get so big?" Marty said. "I don't remember Lily Beaumont filling out a shirt like that."

  I shifted. "We just—we kissed. We made out."

  "That's it?" Marty said. "Seriously?"

  "I guess we kind of—" I searched for the right words. "I don't know, fooled around a bit."

  "Give us some details," Marty groaned but the bell rang then so we headed inside to the packed hallway.

  "There's not much to say," I said over the din of other kids, thankful for the noise, "but we're going to prom."

  "Do we rent a limo, boys?" Marty said.

  I felt marginally better by the time we settled into English css; I sipped the rest of my drink, trying to pay attention. Marty propped his phone up behind his book and flicked through various social media accounts. Casey had his chin in his hand and looked desperately like he was fighting off sleep.

  I felt too preoccupied to focus on analysis of Great Expectations. I saw first Lily in my mind, the intimacies of our hands and mouths. (The curiosity and also the shame, doing something like that with someone I barely knew. I'd been told my whole life that wasn't what God wanted: you were supposed to reserve your body for your spouse.) And then Talon, always Talon. Him coming in my room. The way my stomach fluttered when his name popped up on my home screen. The way he ran his hand through his soft hair, how it lifted off his forehead and fell back down. More importantly, what he'd told me. What was I going to do about it?

  Come on, I chastised myself. You can do anything if you break it down into its simplest parts. Who's someone you can tell?

  Who did people tell in movies and books? Parents, teachers, some reliable authority figure. I imagined Mom and Dad. It wasn't that I didn't trust them. But I had no idea how to form the words needed to convey what was happening; in my mind, Mom and Dad had never faced something like this. Would they be shattered? Besides, there was no pusible deniability. Talon would know I told them.

  Teachers, then, I thought. I cycled through instructors we'd had since middle school. Ones I thought we could trust. Dr. Santos, our science teacher, with her round cheeks and bubbly ugh; she was incredibly sharp while still being warm. She encouraged but never condescended. Or what about Mr. Carter? He was our eighth-grade P.E. teacher, who had, bizarrely, won a small lottery and retired; but while he still taught us—ordering us on lengthy, looping runs, or games of too-intense dodgeball, or softball beneath the spring sunshine—he seemed to take a liking to Talon and even me, perhaps by extension since we were glued at the hip, especially back then. But how would I get a hold of Mr. Carter now that he no longer worked at the school? I thought of Ms. Pearson, Talon's choir instructor. He seemed to think she was cool. Maybe Mr. Oltman. He taught us drama in grade ten. He was bald with piercing blue eyes, a kind and quiet demeanor, roaring to life during scenes but otherwise reserved and observant.

  I stared out the window, watched cars drive by the school. Why hadn't someone else figured this out already? Usually there was some nosy but wise character that detected something amiss in the teenager's life—something physical or behavioural or whatever. So why not with Talon? After all, he'd lost weight, too much weight. He didn't shower all the time. He'd missed so much school I was worried about him graduating. Weren't those clear signs something wasn't right? Sure, it wasn't like I was the most perceptive friend. I could have pried more. But there were teachers around. Adults. Didn't they have meetings about this? Didn't they have contacts with CPS or psychologists or—

  "Mr. Cloud?" Mr. Galgher said.

  "Hm?" I said. Shit. People were looking at me.

  "The stopped clocks," he said, with the tone of voice that old me he'd said this once before. "Remind the css: What do you think they represent? What do they tell us about Miss Havisham's worldview?"

  This was a softball question, designed only to demonstrate our attentiveness.

  "Oh, right, sorry," I said, turning my book over. "Which page was that again?"

  "Can we talk about it?" I said.

  "Please, Ry. Leave it. I'm fine."

  "Does he still do it?" I said, exasperated. "What you said before. Is it happening currently? Or has it, you know, stopped?"

  Talon thought about this for a long time. We were sitting cross-legged on my green pid duvet, mid-afternoon sunshine coming in through my blinds. Talon's lip was shiny and taut. I was hungover and tired from the night before, but excited to see him. He wanted help with biology so I had my textbook open between us, glossy pages reflecting in the sunshine; we were going over definitions and terms and anatomy. Mitosis and meiosis were difficult for him to grasp, as was the Calvin cycle.

  "Don't lie," I said. "You said it was getting worse."

  He opened his mouth and shut it. "It's at a level I can handle. If you interfere, it'll be bad. If I just—if I do… what he wants, I can take it. I can deal with it until grad."

  I sighed. "But—"

  "Can we not?" he said.

  We went back to biology. I kept looking up, gncing at his face, but he'd catch me and I'd look away. He wore a different band shirt, boygenius, long-sleeved and covering his arms. His hair fell perfectly over his forehead but he, too, looked sleepy. After another ten minutes of me expining and him griping, he pushed the textbook to the side, crawled forward, and flopped his head in my p.

  "I'm bored," he said, looking up at me, smiling. "Are we done, Professor Cloud?"

  "Hmm," I said, looking down at his eyes. Don't get an erection, I told myself, don't be creepy and gross. "What is abiogenesis?"

  He frowned, thinking. I traced a finger through his soft hair and he closed his eyes. I trailed it across his eyebrow. "Abio—what?"

  "Abiogenesis."

  "Um," he said, "what if I just nap instead?"

  I moved my finger from his eyebrow, down his nose, almost to his bruised lip, and then I drew it back.

  "Nope," I said. "Bio time."

  There was This Thing between us sometimes. Hard to define but easy to detect. This hum of electricity. Sometimes I swore it was only me who noticed it but then other times—moments I pored over in my head when I couldn't sleep, like that time at school—I knew he must feel it, too.

  He pulled himself up, groaning. "I'm leaving you a bad Rate my Professor review."

  We studied for another forty-five minutes until both of us grew restless. I y on one elbow, trying to think of ways to get Talon out of his house and with me. That seemed like a good pn.

  "Hey, you know they're putting on Footloose this year?" I said.

  Talon gnced at me. "I know."

  "We should go see it. Isn't it in a week or two?"

  "May twenty-sixth."

  "You should have tried out," I said.

  "I did."

  "You did?" I said. "Well, they were crazy not to cast you."

  "No, I—" he paused, picked at a hangnail on his ring finger. "I got a part."

  "What? I'm confused."

  He sighed. "I got the part I wanted—but I—I dropped out pretty early."

  "Tal, what? What role did you get?"

  He slowly smiled. "Ren McCormack."

  I'd seen the movie. I knew who Kevin Bacon pyed. "You got the lead and you dropped out?"

  He shook his head. "There wasn't time…"

  Between what? I thought. Between failing biology and not coming to school? He must have tried out in the fall and dropped out within weeks; probably the same timeframe he disappeared, stopped talking to me.

  "Tal," I said gently. "There's time for stuff like that. There is!"

  Rachel swung my door open, halfway through a sentence. She threw her backpack next to my desk. She was chewing on a cookie, one of Mom's, crumbs flying everywhere.

  "—and Ry," she said, "Dr. Santos said, and I quote, I had a lot to live up to next year because of you. So way to set me up for failure—" She saw Talon. Her cheeks grew pink, and she beamed.

  "Talon! You're staying for dinner, right?" She turned over her shoulder and promptly bellowed: "MOM! TALON'S STAYING FOR DINNER!"

  I heard Mom yell something back but it was incoherent. Probably: stop hollering at me, come and speak to me like a civilized human being, which we heard nearly daily.

  But Mom came up the stairs herself a few minutes ter. Her pale hair was pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She smiled at Talon. "Hi, honey," she said.

  "Hi, Mrs. Cloud."

  Mom leaned against my doorframe. "I'm making cabbage rolls. There's a lot of meat in them. But I just found some lentils tucked in the back of a cupboard. I think I can whip up a different filling for yours, but will you forgive me if they're subpar? This might require some trial and error."

  Talon looked aghast. "Oh, Mrs. Cloud, you don't have to go to all that extra work for me. I'm fine. I'm barely hungry. I can have toast. Or I don't have to eat anything. Uh. You know, I can even just go home—"

  "No," I said. "Stay."

  "Talon, sweetie, please," Mom said. "It's no problem. I like to try new things. There'll be a small dey but I'm going to get started on those. I'll call you down when it's ready."

  "Thanks so much," Talon said. "I appreciate it."

  Rachel, Talon, and I hung out for a bit in my room—chatting, catching up, filling each other in and ughing; then swapping rumors and gossip ("I heard Marty cheated on Kat, is that true?" Rachel said, and I kept mum); watching YouTube, mostly a new Priority Three music video—and Mom called us for dinner an hour ter. Dad asked who would like to say grace and I jumped in so Talon wouldn't feel pressured to do so. Mom piled Talon's pte high with four big rolls and told him there was plenty more. So Talon didn't feel like an oddity, I ate the version Mom had made for him as well: instead of the ground beef she regurly used for filling (and which Mom, Dad, and Rachel ate), she'd created a mixture of quinoa and lentil. They were delicious, smoky and tangy and sweet.

  "Wow, Mrs. Cloud," Talon said, after inhaling a cabbage roll, "this is one of the best things I've ever eaten."

  "Seriously," I said, tearing into one. "I can't believe you whipped this up."

  "You're sweet, you two," Mom said.

  I saw Talon repeatedly bite into his own fat lip and wince. When Mom, Dad, and Rachel were deep in conversation, I leaned over and nudged him. "Slow down," I said softly, pointing at his lip, "the food isn't going anywhere."

  "My stomach feels good today," he said, "so I thought I'd eat while I could."

  Then I felt guilty for bringing up his lip so I put another two rolls on his pte.

  Around eight-thirty, Talon grabbed his backpack so he could head home. Stall, I thought, stall, but I knew Mom and Dad didn't usually permit guests past eight, so even this was an allowance. Mom insisted Talon take leftovers and packed a Tupperware full of six cabbage rolls. He gripped it, thanked her again.

  "I'll walk over with you," I said.

  I wanted the road to stretch on forever. But we crossed it in a few strides. Stephen's truck was parked out front, which meant he was likely home.

  Talon stood on his front doorstep. I stood below the stairs, looking up at him.

  "Do you have to go?" I said.

  "I have to."

  "Can't you just sleep over?"

  He shook his head, averting his eyes. "Thanks for studying with me." Then he smiled at me in a way that made my stomach feel funny. "And thanks for keeping your word."

  I lingered for a moment after he shut the door. How could I let him go back inside? And thanks for keeping your word. How could I not?

  When I got home, I looked for Dad. Mom directed me to his office. He was on the phone though, the other ndline we still had. It was old and brown but connected to a special number that members of our congregation had in case they needed quick or emergency spiritual counseling. When I lingered in the doorway, Dad held up his finger in a one-minute gesture.

  Around nine-thirty he called me in.

  "Everything okay?" he said. He pulled off his reading gsses and rubbed his inner eyes. He looked exhausted.

  I sat down in the chair in front of his desk. I got right to the point. "How do you be a better friend?"

  "Ah. A better friend." Dad nodded to himself and then watched my face. "I take it I'm not going to get the full context." He paused and when I didn't answer, he said, "Growing pains? Friendship woes? Big decisions?"

  "Something like that."

  Dad reached behind him and grabbed a thick Bible I was very familiar with. Well-worn and annotated, dog-eared and sticky-noted, it meant a lot to him. He handed me one of the smaller Bibles he sometimes handed out to newer members or Sunday School kids who forgot theirs.

  "Turn to Psalm 91. Start at four," he said and waited patiently for me to find the verse he was referencing. I'll give him this: he could be patient if he wanted to. If it was about Christianity or the Bible, he seemed to have an endless reserve of stamina.

  "He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge," I said, my voice cracking. My forefinger traced along the words. The soft pages felt like a warm firepce. "His faithfulness is a shield and buckler."

  He joined in and we read in unison: "You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday."

  For whatever reason, my eyes pricked with tears. I'd heard Dad discuss this passage before. I liked the line: his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. When I was a kid sitting in church, watching Dad up there, I imagined God as a trusty dog, enormous, both cute and fierce. I hadn't known what buckler was immediately—I'd never heard a shield referred to in that way—so I imagined God in dog form wearing a buckle around his waist, as though that would protect me.

  "But is this about being a better friend, or about God?" I said.

  Dad leaned back. "No matter what happens in our lives," he said, "God's in control; through our trust and belief in Him, we find belief in ourselves."

  I frowned, looking at the words in front of me again.

  Dad leaned forward. "That's what we're always trying to do, son," he said. "Channel the character of God in our daily interactions, in our retionships with each other."

  But what if I didn't want to do that? What if I couldn't reconcile the God dad preached about and what Talon told me?

  Feeling more confused than ever, I got ready for bed. I texted Talon and said, let's hang out tomorrow. On Instagram, Lily had sent me a meme. I liked it. Brushed my teeth, pulled off my shirt, and climbed into bed. I thought of studying with Talon, of the proximity of our body parts. My fingers in his hair. His eyes closing. And then, in my half-awake mind, a memory from years and years ago came floating to the surface:

  Talon and I were at the YMCA. I took swimming lessons there; Talon used to be enrolled when he was young but stopped somewhere around level five. Between us, I was the strong swimmer (and already had my sights set on working as a lifeguard) but he was decent. We were messing around that day, joking, pushing each other, getting called on once or twice by the middle-aged lifeguard who said she didn't want to see that type of behavior and how old were we?

  But this was the summer of grade seven. I felt old—I was thirteen!—but in hindsight, she should have recognized our actions as entirely appropriate, albeit irritating, for a pair of middle-grade boys. At that point, I felt like I was gaining inches every month. Talon was still twelve and hadn't yet shot up, so we had a bigger height disparity than we would ter. I'd gotten my braces off a few weeks before and kept running my tongue over my smooth teeth, which felt giant without metal covering them. Talon still wore his. That day, we were bouncing in and out of the pool, moving to the hot tub, the sauna room, and then leaping back into the cold water. We were also discussing our group's test news.

  At school, Marty told us he kissed a girl. None of us believed him at first ("no way!" Casey said, "When? Where?" and Rob said, "find her and do it again in front of us!") but Marty insisted.

  "I did, I did," he said. We were all huddled around the fence at lunch, near the soccer goalposts.

  "Who was it?" Rob said.

  "Isabel."

  "Isabel M.? Or Isabel C.?" Casey said.

  "C.," he said confidently.

  "Ooh," we all said, even Talon.

  So now at the pool, Talon and I were trying to decipher if this was true: had Marty kissed Isabel? We agreed that he probably did because he brought with him a solid amount of details. He said it was during P.E. It was a gymnastics unit that week. After css, we had to put away the tumbling mats; those blue mats were giant, pretty big for kids in grade seven, so we were always assigned this task in pairs of twos. Marty S. and Isabel C. were picked randomly by the teacher. The two of them lugged the mats into the musty, cluttered storage locker. Marty said it was Isabel who brought it up, who said she wanted to try it and that his lips looked kissable and that mostly it was because there was no one watching and her sister said she was never going to get boobs so she wanted to be good at other things if she was going to be a te bloomer in the chest department. Marty leaped at the opportunity. He said he put his hands on Isabel's hips—"right on her jeans but I swear on my life I almost touched her skin," he said enthusiastically—and she kept her arms at her side. They both had their eyes open and their lips were chapped so they pulled back, licked their lips, and tried again. He said it felt rubbery and awesome.

  Talon and I dissected this and soon our conversation devolved into panic. We were hanging over the side of the pool, half in and half out of the water.

  "Do you think we're going to get kissed soon?" I said.

  Talon thought about this. He had a weird look on his face. "Maybe," he said.

  "What if we don't know what to do?"

  "Don't you just—" He closed his eyes and pursed his lips cartoonishly. "—do that?"

  "I don't know," I said, "it looks different on TV."

  "Maybe we should practice."

  "I tried," I said miserably, "on my pillow."

  He ughed and grabbed my arm.

  We rested on our wet forearms, both of nervously considering the negative outcome if we turned out to be bad kissers. I could see little dollops of water on his newly forming arm hair. I had an idea, but it was kind of weird. I opened my mouth, but he spoke before I could.

  "Ry… What if we just give each other a tiny peck?" he said.

  "We can give each other tips," I said, nodding enthusiastically.

  "Like if our lips are dry or weird or something—"

  "—we can tell each other."

  Talon thought about this. "We can do it underwater."

  "Then it's not even a real kiss," I said quickly, "it's like—"

  "—another world," he said.

  "Yeah!" I paused. "But don't tell Marty."

  "Or Rob. Or Casey!"

  We pinky swore, then tugged our goggles down over our wet hair.

  "One—" I said.

  "—Two—"

  "—Three!"

  We ducked under the surface and swam down a couple feet. Despite the goggles, chlorine stung the corners of my eyes. But I could see Talon as clear as possible; we used our arms to keep ourselves underwater. We leaned forward. My heart started doing this weird thudding thing I wasn't used to. We bonked our noses together and swam up.

  "Woops," Talon said, spitting out water.

  "Try again?" I said.

  "Let's do it."

  We went back down and bumped our chins this time.

  "I think we need to tilt our faces a bit," I said.

  "Right," Talon said, nodding to himself. After a pause, he said, "I'll go left, you go right."

  Our third time down, we figured out the correct angle. It was a chaste kiss, but our lips connected. I felt warmth in my chest and, horrifyingly, my groin. We bobbed back up, ughing, and then went down again and again. We tangled our pruned fingers when we did it the fourth or fifth time, trying to stay down a little longer, giving each other two and then three and then four small kisses.

  We came up, smiling at each other, panting from the exertion of repeatedly diving down. I eyed the yellow clock on the far wall. Stephen was picking us up at five ten; it took him ten minutes to get from work to the YMCA. The hand hadn't quite reached the twelve, so we had just over ten minutes. Mustering up all my mental power, I willed time to stop. We were having so much fun, somewhere on the cusp of innocence and curiosity; whatever it was, I didn't want this to end.

  "Let's do a few more," Talon said. "I think we're getting it."

  Each time we came up for air, I stared at that clock, thinking, Come on, don't hit the twelve, just stay there. Stay right there.