Page 164 of Wayfarers

“I know you said you don’t want to talk,” I say. “And I don’t know if that means that you don’t want to have a conversation or you don’t want me to say anything. But I just needed to tell you I’m glad I have one more chance to say thanks for everything. And I’m sorry. And I’ll miss you. Anyway, yeah, you don’t have to respond to that. Just wanted it out there.”

Sylvie doesn’t respond.

Sylvie A Little Later

Or maybe a lot later, I don’t know. I still don’t want to talk to him. To apologize, or hear his apology. I don’t want to hear that he’s joining back up with his messed-up cult. But I don’t want him to leave, either, and so when he starts to stand, I say, “Where are you headed?”

“Maybe gonna find some dinner. The people down the row are selling chili from a Crockpot for five bucks a bowl.”

“Hmm. Is it worth five bucks?”

“Probably not,” he says affably.

“Especially not your last five bucks.” I fish some money out of my wallet, but Knox shakes his head.

“I don’t need any more charity.”

“Okay.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

“We’re clear.”

A LITTLE LATER

Finally I have to ask. “Was somebody in your—crew making that chili?”

“No,” he says. “I would’ve told you.”

“Does your arm hurt?” I’m not sure why I’m asking. “Right now?”

“It does,” he allows. “Not a lot. Mostly it itches. After I’m done eating I’m thinking about sticking a spoon under there and going to town. I mean, I’ll wash it first.”

All this talking, and the only thing I’m listening for is Sylvie, I’m not going back to them, or Sylvie, the last real conversation we have isn’t going to be about parking lot chili.

But I don’t hear it. All I hear is Winslow, thwapping his tail on the ground. Maybe the psychic was right: Winslow, my constant companion; Winslow, my one and only.

“Good boy,” Knox says, without a trace of irony, without any blame in his voice for the bones Winslow broke, and when I start crying I hope it’s quiet enough to go unnoticed.

The people-watching is epic. Kids with solar system T-shirts, boys running around with super soaker water guns, a pair of twins my mother’s age rushing by in rhinestone shorts, shivering. Somewhere, someone is cooking hot dogs. A dog howls, and Winslow’s ears go up and down, up and down.

Finally, I say, “I don’t know where I’m going to go after I drop you off. I don’t want to go home, though. I definitely don’t want that. I used to—“

“What?” Knox asks.

“I thought I wanted to be alone. But it was killing me. After we met, the only thing I wanted was you. To be with you. I was almost stupid about it. Because, Knox, I should’ve known you were with them. Dawn and your mom and their cult. You basically told me, a bunch of times, and I went on willfully ignoring it so I didn’t have to part ways with you. I invited someone into my home who was aligned with the people who came in when I was at my lowest to drag me down even further. Who hit me in the face.”

Knox is listening.

“Lara says you and I are alike, and that’s why I’m so upset. That the stuff you did to me is so close to the stuff I did to you that it makes me hate it even more.”

“That sounds about right,” he says. “Who’s Lara?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you . . .” Later, I was about to say, but I don’t know if there is a later for us.

“I’d been planning to leave them for a long time,” he says.

“What made you go? When you did?” I’ve been talking out to the world all this time, but now I let myself lean back, look at his face. From this angle, he’s in shadow—his eyes, his stubble. The boy who ran out into the dark to find something I’d lost.