Wild Awake

eyes. “Next time we race, I get a head start.”
    I realize, to my simultaneous horror and exhilaration, that I’m flirting with him.
    Skunk pulls on a wool sock, his face carefully composed, as if he’s trying to figure out how far into his private universe he should let me intrude, and for how long.
    Stop it, Kiri! says the part of me that’s shocked by my boldness.
    The other part says, Why?
    I smile at him and cast a mischievous glance at my wet tank top, knowing Skunk’s eyes will follow.
    “I wish it wasn’t raining. But I guess it doesn’t matter, since I’m already soaked. Anyway. See you later.”
    I turn around to slide the door open before he sees the half-mortified, half-triumphant expression on my face. My heart is beating like a castanet. All right, flirt-monster. That’s enough for one night. He obviously doesn’t like you . My fingers find the plastic handle.
    “Wait,” says Skunk.

chapter twenty-four
    The rain doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
    So I stay.
    Skunk tiptoes upstairs, and when he comes back down he’s carrying a small clay teapot and two tiny cups without handles. We sit cross-legged on the rug in the middle of the floor, drink our tea, and talk in whispers so his aunt and uncle won’t hear. I can’t stop looking around the room, stealing glances at the radios, the lanterns, the junk-store painting of Kali, the quilt on Skunk’s bed. I still can’t quite believe I’m in here. Part of me’s on my wet bicycle, making her disciplined, hard-working, and responsible way home. It takes all my self-control not to chicken out and follow her.
    Between thimblefuls of smoky, earthy tea, I make Skunk tell me the story of every radio in the room.
    The boxy green one he found on top of someone’s trash.
    The antique one in the walnut cabinet someone left at the bottom of their driveway with a FREE sign the morning after a garage sale.
    The digital clock radio he stole from a hospital room.
    The vintage 1960s transistor radio his dad gave him a week before he committed suicide in his apartment.
    I tell myself I’ll only stay until we’re finished our tea, but the teapot never seems to run out. Every time Skunk lifts it to fill our cups, more tea trickles out. He asks me about the Imperial, and I tell him everything I’ve found out since the night we met.
    “Are you sure you want to hear this?” I ask, remembering Lukas’s reaction, but in the cozy lamplight, it feels like there’s no secret too terrible to say. Skunk gives me a sweater to wear, a big brown woolen one that drapes over my whole body like a warm, fuzzy tent. I feel self-conscious wearing it, like I’m taking a nap in his bed. But it also makes my chest tingle. Get real, Kiri , I tell myself. This isn’t going anywhere .
    Every few minutes my eyes flit to the clock on the little red radio. It’s four thirty a.m., I should go home. It’s five a.m., I should go home. It’s five fifteen, I should go home . At six a.m. there’s noise upstairs, and we can hear Skunk’s aunt and uncle taking showers and making breakfast.
    “I should probably leave too,” I whisper. “I really need to practice.”
    “At six in the morning?”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s still raining.”
    “I’ll get wet.”
    “At least finish your tea.”
    “That teapot is enchanted. It never runs out.”
    “I know.”
    “So you’re saying you’re trying to enchant me?”
    Skunk presses his lips together. “Wait and see.”
    I sip my tea, trying to play it cool. But I can’t help it. I spring to my feet. “I really need to go.”
    Skunk waves his arms. “Oh no! She’s fiending!”
    “I am not fiending .”
    “How many hours has it been since your last hit?”
    I count. “Nine and a half.”
    “Fiending,” says Skunk.
    “I swear I’m not a junkie,” I say. “It’s just that my piano will explode if I don’t practice for long enough each day. It’s sort of like a bomb in that respect.”
    Skunk goes to the wall and turns on a radio. He tunes it to a classical station, and the slow first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata comes pouring out.
    “I’m playing that piece in the Showcase,” I blurt.
    Skunk kneels on the floor and pours me more tea.
    “Tell me all about it,” he says.
    In the afternoon we go upstairs to make breakfast before Skunk’s aunt and uncle come home from work. Their house is a mysterious planet of vitamin bottles and piled-up mail, as different as could be from the warm,