Cold Kiss

hate riding a bike.”
    I’ve driven a car—like, actually driven it on a street, not just started it or moved it five feet in the driveway—exactly twice. On a quiet Sunday afternoon early in the summer, and a Tuesday at dinnertime a few days later. Months ago, with my mom in the passenger seat, calmly reminding me to look in the rearview mirror and apply the brakes gently.
    It’s Friday morning now, one of the busiest times of day in town as everyone heads to school or work. And I have to steer the little blue rust bucket Olivia owns all the way across town, on my own. Just starting the engine is enough to startle me, since the car growls like I kicked it and shudders into gear.
    Perfect.
    But I can’t let myself be nervous. I definitely can’t let my power drive me off the road, either, even though it’s a close call as I pull into the street and the car practically leaps forward like a bad dog on a leash. The whole thing seems to be vibrating, and I don’t know whether that’s normal, for this car anyway, or if it’s because my head is about to explode with nerves and power.
    I don’t even turn the radio on as I steer toward town and then through it, trying not to go too fast or too slow, and once waiting so long at a stop sign that the man in the car behind me lays on his horn. I jolt forward into the intersection and realize I’m chanting, “Just breathe, just breathe,” like some demented broken record.
    In the end, it takes about nineteen minutes longer than it should have to pull up to the entry to the park, plus two near misses with parked cars, a hellishly confusing traffic circle that actually makes me cry when an old woman in a Subaru gives me the finger, and one time slamming on the brakes so hard I nearly hit my head on the windshield. When I finally get out, I want to drop to the ground and pass out.
    But I still have to find Danny, and I pull my phone out to call Gabriel as I break into a run on the wide, paved bicycle path.
    “I’m here,” I pant as I jog farther into the park. It’s empty, too late for most runners and too far away from the playground for moms with little kids. The tree where Becker’s car hit is down behind the pond.
    “Slow down.” Gabriel’s voice is tight and low. “He’s calm now, but you probably shouldn’t startle him. Right now he’s sitting against the base of the tree, and I’m behind that shed to your left. Shit, your right. Whichever.”
    There’s only one shed, but Gabriel’s beginning to sound as strung out on exhaustion as I feel, so I just click off the phone and wind down into a fast walk. When I make my way around the sharp bend in the path, the road following along beside me, I notice the tree before I see Danny. It’s hard to miss, pointing up like a giant splinter, jagged now at the base.
    Danny’s sitting with his back against it, but he’s facing mostly away from me, looking at the road. His long legs are splayed carelessly in the dirt, and his hands rest on the ground beside them, palms up as if he’s waiting to be given something.
    An explanation, I think, and shudder a little as I creep through the grass toward the storage shed twenty-five feet away.
    Gabriel sags back against the thick vinyl siding when I come around the corner on the far side. “Hey. You in one piece?”
    “More or less,” I say, and crawl around him to watch Danny, who hasn’t moved.
    There are a thousand things I could say, probably should say, but as I sit back on my heels and stare at Danny’s sculpted, motionless profile, I can’t think of any of them. Relief is a hot, thick taste in my mouth, but dread coats it. If I can’t think of what to say to Gabriel, I have no idea how to even approach Danny.
    But I have to. I have to lead him away from here and into that car and then … well, I haven’t gotten that far yet, but it doesn’t matter. The point is, he can’t stay here, even if I’m only now realizing that getting him into Mrs. Petrelli’s garage is going to be impossible without being seen. She lives on a busy block with lots of young moms and toddlers who are outside a lot, running around the yards in tiny little jackets while their moms drink coffee on porch steps. I can’t risk walking him down my street to cut through the yards, either—I have no idea if Mom would have gone home when she got the call from school that I wasn’t there.
    “He’s been quiet for a while,” Gabriel says, so low I have to turn my head to catch it