Cold Kiss

now whenever I go to the house something is cooking.
    I don’t know where all the food goes, because both she and Becker look like they haven’t eaten in months.
    There’s a distant grunt when I knock on Becker’s door, just audible over the sound of the TV. I push the door open and squint. The shades are drawn and the room is nearly night-dark aside from the light of the big flat-screen TV mounted to the wall opposite the bed.
    Becker glances at me, and I can tell he’s high. He’s still on painkillers, even though I heard the doctors wanted him to stop. And I know that K.J. Simon sneaks him pot when he comes over. I can’t believe his parents can’t smell it—he doesn’t even bother to wheel himself toward the window when he smokes, and the grassy, burnt scent of weed is baked into the curtains and the comforter now.
    “Hey, Wren.” He’s sprawled on the bed, his mangled leg still braced and awkward. I take a couple of magazines off the easy chair in the corner and sit down as he struggles up on his elbows, wrenching himself into a sitting position.
    “What’re you watching?”
    “Nothing.” He picks up the remote and clicks the TV off, and I try not to cringe. It’s easier when he leaves it on, when we can spend an hour silently watching a stupid movie or guys on BMX bikes coming this close to breaking their necks.
    I was never really angry at him, although everyone assumed I would be. That’s what his mom thinks, I know, and what Becker thinks, too. He can’t look at me, either, unless he’s really wasted, and then he can’t stop talking, apologizing and crying and holding my hand.
    I hate those days.
    I should be furious with him. He bought the beer; he drove the car; he was speeding, laughing, not paying attention, drunk and goofing around like nothing in the world could hurt either him or Danny. But when I look at him now there’s nothing but a whistling emptiness in my chest.
    Becker’s always been the clown, and he could afford to be. He’s that kind of athletic good-looking, not as tall as Danny, and a little broader, but still pretty graceful. His parents have money, the kind that gets you into good schools even when you don’t have the best grades. He was always the one grabbing Danny and Ryan to cut afternoon classes and go drink beer up in the woods, or sneak into a movie.
    Now no one can say if he’ll ever walk again, at least without a crutch and a definite limp, even if he does get his act together and concentrate on physical therapy.
    He rubs his eyes and takes a deep breath like he’s working up to saying something, and I wish he wouldn’t. Mostly I just wish I could leave, but Becker’s my friend, too, and sometimes I feel bad, because I think I should feel worse. Becker lived through the accident, but life as he knows it is over.
    “How are you?” he says, the words slurring together a little bit.
    I shrug. “I should be asking you that.”
    He makes a dismissive noise and shakes his head. “The same, pretty much.”
    “Me too, I guess.”
    His face twists a little, and he doesn’t look at me when he says, “I’m so sorry, Wren. I just wish…”
    “Becker, don’t.” I can’t listen to it today. “Let’s watch something, okay?”
    He doesn’t answer me for a minute, and doesn’t look up from the rumpled mess of his blue plaid comforter, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep, or if he’s just really high. But in a moment he lifts his head, and his eyes are glassy, bright.
    I turn to face the TV as he clicks it on, and we watch some behind-the-scenes thing on a metal band I’ve never heard of. I don’t care, though. It’s better than talking.
    And it’s a lot better than thinking about how neither one of us can let go, Becker of the boy he was before the accident, and me of the boy I lost. Holding on isn’t doing either of us any good, but it’s too late to change it now, for me anyway.
    He’s asleep when I look at him later, head drooping onto one shoulder, the skin under his eyes smudged dark and too thin. I turn off the TV when I leave, and I don’t wonder what he dreams.
    I stop at Bliss for a coffee on the way home, and I’m walking up Elm when Mom pulls up at the curb and honks. “Jump in,” she calls. She’s grinning, like this is the happiest accident ever, and I can’t think of a good excuse to refuse even with Danny still alone in the loft.
    We stop at the supermarket on the way home, and Robin proposes that we make enchiladas