Cold Kiss

are plain brown, the color of dried mud.
    “I worked yesterday,” I tell her, and breathe in the caffeine-rich steam of my coffee again. Mom’s always up and out early on Saturdays, since that’s the salon’s busiest day. Robin usually has a game, and then spends the afternoon with Mom doing homework and answering the phone at the front desk.
    “Do you have homework to do today?”
    “Always,” I groan, and pick through the laundry when I spot my favorite shirt. “But I’m going to see Becker later.”
    Mom makes a noncommittal hmm noise, but I can feel her watching me as I finish my coffee and set the mug in the sink. I hate that she doesn’t trust me anymore, but I hate more that I know she shouldn’t. Half of what I tell her is a lie, and I never meet her eyes these days if I can help it.
    Even now, I’m wondering if I can get down Clark and over to Rosewood and to the loft before I come home. I’ve never left Danny alone for a whole day, and he was strange last night, his fingers too tight where they were twined with mine as I said good-bye.
    Thud. I can still hear it, still see his face, smooth as stone, empty, his eyes flat and unseeing. I turn around and paw blindly across the counter for the basket of fruit, anything to focus on.
    Robin bangs into the kitchen as I’m peeling a banana, soccer ball balanced in one hand and her practice bag slung over her shoulder.
    “Ooh, look, she’s risen from the dead,” she says, and I nearly choke on my banana.
    “No thanks to you,” I manage a moment later, when Mom frowns. “Soccer is an outdoor sport, genius.”
    “Whatever.” She’s got the attitude down already, I have to give her that, even if she is still twelve. “I’m the only girl on the team who can head the ball, and I have to practice.”
    I roll my eyes at her this time, even though it is sort of cool—I’ve been to a couple of her games, and she’s really good, a sturdy little streak of lightning on the field, her feet always moving. She loves sports the way I, well, don’t, and it’s pretty awesome.
    I don’t tell her that, though. Her head is big enough as it is.
    She’s rooting around in the fridge for something when Mom says, “Do you want a ride over to Becker’s?”
    I wonder if she knows how long it takes me to get there when I walk. Not because it’s far, but because I drag it out. Ryan and I trade off visiting Becker, but I hate it. “Nah, I’m good.”
    “If you’re sure.” She stands up and puts the last folded T-shirt on the top of the pile, and for a minute I want to bury my head on her shoulder, tell her I’m not sure, that I don’t want to go at all, that I need her to fix everything for me. But the time when I could have done that is long past.
    Instead, I let her ruffle my hair as she walks past me. “I think I’ll swing by and get Robin after practice, maybe head to the mall. You guys could use a couple of winter things, I bet. And we can get some lunch, too, Binny.”
    “Really?” Robin is beaming. She turns to set her water down on the counter and her grip on the soccer ball slips—for just a second, when she catches sight of it, it hangs there in midair like a wobbly little planet, and I can feel the air tighten, thick and heavy the way it feels before a thunderstorm.
    She blinks, surprised, and catches it before it hits the floor, and both of us look at Mom.
    Her lips are pressed tight together, but she doesn’t freak. Instead, she just says, “You’ll be done by one, right? I’ll pick you up.”
    Robin lets out a relieved breath and heads for the front door, calling over her shoulder, “See you!”
    And then it’s just me and Mom again. I glance out the window at the backyard, where the roof of the loft is just visible through the trees, and my stomach swoops low and fast as I picture the Danny in my dream.
    Between going to see Becker and checking on Danny, it’s hard to say which I want to do less.
    Becker’s mom answers the door when I ring the bell a few hours later. She always looks vaguely guilty to see me, pale eyes flicking everywhere but at my face. Becker was driving the car, after all.
    “George is upstairs.” She stands back to let me pass, and I can smell something on the stove in the kitchen, dark and spicy. Mrs. Becker used to work downtown at the health clinic, but she quit after the accident to take care of Becker. He’s the youngest, “her baby,” she told me the day I went to see him in the hospital, and