Killing Time in Crystal City (17 page)

FAMILY EXTENDED

T
wo blocks clear of Syd's house, as I am expecting the world to begin its descent to something I might recognize as normal, Molly comes bouncing toward me from the opposite direction.

“But I just want to borrow it. Just that one book, just for a little while. And I'll bring it back and it will be completely unharmed.”

“Wow,” I say, standing still to greet her.

“Wow, yes, wow,” she says, hopping like a grinning pogo stick before me.

My heart hurts when I see how my presence brightens her up. Like I, or the book, can make things in any way better for her. But what do I know? Maybe she's right. Maybe the book is right.

Her relentless try-for-happy game is almost working. She looks no better than the last time I saw her. And her cast positively reeks.

“So,” she says, “can I borrow it? Can I?”

The first thing I think to do is put all kinds of conditions on it, like how she needs to do this and that and stay away from that one, and blah blah.

All of it unenforceable, unfair, and none of my business. I can wish her luck, but I cannot force it on her.

However, I know what I can do.

“No,” I say.

She all but melts into a puddle right there on the sidewalk. “No? But, Kiki, you—”

“No, I won't loan it, but I will give it to you, on one condition.” I hold up my arm.

“You're out!” She squeals. “That's terrific.”

“Yes it is,” I say. “Terrific. I feel like a new person. And I would like you to have that feeling.”

“What?” She looks closely at her toxic friend there on her arm. “But I
need
this.”

“Well, sure, that's up to you. I think you don't, but . . .” I take off my backpack, fish out the book, and as soon as she sees it she starts a childlike moan like she badly needs to go to the bathroom and everybody else is opening up Christmas presents without her at the same time. I then pull my new surgical tool out of the bag.

“Do it, hurry, do it, hurry,” she says, looking away.

I do not miss my chance. I sit her down on the curb, take a seat beside her, and slice through the cast even more quickly than mine came off.

“Holy fish, Molly,” I say as the fumes come up and burn my eyes shut and cauterize the linings of my sinuses.

When I look again, she is on her feet, with the book in one hand and the no-longer-broken arm in the air. She is staring at it, wiggling her fingers and flexing just like I did. I stand up, and she immediately kisses me on the cheek without even looking.

“Thank you for everything,” she says, backing away.

“Thank you, too. But, slow down, slow down. Where's Stacey?”

Molly's getting miffed with the delay. She snorts, then blurts, “I escaped. From Stacey. She was not letting me out or do anything I so chose to do. I mean, she means well and does have honorable intentions, but, she's a little crazy, I think.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes, she's like a cult, actually, and I simply had to escape, to get away from her. Now, I told you, and so can I please take my book and go? It's going to be so important for me and for everybody. Please, Kiki?”

I find my gaze drifting up, from her big shiny eyes up to her big shiny Cleveland Browns helmet of hair, the one indestructible constant throughout all this. Then, in a shift at once subtle and alarming, she steps back and looks at me with an expression of shocking, comprehensive sanity.

“And tell Stacey thank you for me, too. Will you? Tell her I love her and appreciate her and value everything she tried to do for me. And then tell her that I don't need saving. Tell her I don't want to be saved.”

Still caught up in the wind rush of that change, I take a couple more ticks to catch up.

“Sure, Molly,” I say. “Of course, if I get the chance, I'll tell her.”

Once more she smiles big and unfocuses those fluid eyes—almost like it's a choice—and backs up into her Mollyness for good.

“I can't wait,” she says, clutching her book hard. “This is going to be a beautiful turn of things, a turn for beautiful things.” She's bouncing and bobbing, in a huge rush now to get to the place she is in such a hurry to get to. She is glancing equally, though, between the book and the arm. I choose to see this as a hopeful thing.

She is still thank you, thank you-ing as her voice fades off down the road.

I am back down, returning the cutters to the bag and closing up shop.

“She only thinks she escaped,” Stacey says.

I jump up, surprised for a flicker, then not. “Going to walk me to the bus station?” I ask.

“I'd be honored,” she says.

We walk, we talk, and sadness builds in me with each step. But indecision, no. Regret, no.

“So, did you earn that merit badge?” she asks.

“About twelve times over,” I say.

She takes my hand. “I can remove your cast before I go,” I say. “I'm licensed now.”

“No. I'll wait until I'm healed, thanks.”

“Sensible as always.”

“That's me. I believe you owe me a story, don't you? I have a vague memory about something you think you might have done but weren't sure? We were cut off before you could finish.”

“There was no finish. Probably won't ever be one.”

We are almost to the bus station.

“I'm going home, Stacey. There are people there for me. And I have to deal with them.”

“Good boy,” she says.

“You could come with me, you know. I mean it. I would love that.”

We are in front of the shiny glass doors that we came through to start this whole thing. She shakes her head gently, heartbreakingly, and unnecessarily.

“You go,” she says. “You do belong somewhere after all, and it sure isn't Crystal City. There's no shame in actually belonging someplace. Any one of us would go back if we had that. Go.”

“I'm going, I'm going,” I say. “What are you going to do?”

I hate sad smiles. They are a perversion of everything I will ever understand. She sees me staring and probably pouting and she looks down for a moment. Then she comes back up with a smile less sad, less sincere, less Stacey.

“I am going to wave,” she says, and as I try to come closer to her she takes one crisp step away from me, and starts waving.

She is still waving when I go through those doors, and when I look back over my shoulder a few seconds later and a few seconds later.

I look for her when the bus pulls out of the depot, hoping she will still be there to wave me off from the once-in-a-lifetime summer holiday to paradise.

She's not there anymore. I wave to her anyway. I'll probably never stop.

CHRIS LYNCH
is the Printz Honor–winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including
Inexcusable
, which was a National Book Award Finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. He is also the author of
Freewill
,
Gold Dust
,
Gypsy Davey
,
Iceman
, and
Shadow Boxer
, all ALA Best Books for Young Adults, as well as
Little Blue Lies
,
Pieces
,
Kill Switch
,
Angry Young Man
,
Hothouse
,
Extreme Elvin
,
Whitechurch
, and
All the Old Haunts
. Chris teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He divides his time between Boston and Scotland.

ALSO BY CHRIS LYNCH

Angry Young Man

Freewill

Gypsy Davey

Iceman

Inexcusable

Kill Switch

Little Blue Lies

Pieces

Shadow Boxer

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Chris Lynch

Jacket photograph copyright © 2015 by Maria Dorner/plainpicture

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Jacket design by Krista Vossen

Interior design by Hilary Zarycky

The text for this book is set in Berling.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lynch, Chris.

Killing time in Crystal City / Chris Lynch. — 1st edition.

pages cm

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Kevin tries to reinvent himself when he runs away from home and the father he hates, but living with a mysterious uncle and befriending two homeless girls just adds more complications.

ISBN 978-1-4424-4011-1 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4424-4013-5 (eBook)

[1. Runaways—Fiction. 2. Homeless persons—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Uncles—Fiction. 5. Family problems—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L979739Kin 2015

[Fic]—dc23

2013043299