You Look Different in Real Life

Nate, full of extra meanings.
    The car stops in front of the house and after Felix jumps out, I do too. Nobody’s come out of the house togreet us, which feels like an ominous sign.
    “I love you,” I say to him, and his eyes fill with tears. He circles me into a Felix bear hug.
    “You rattle my world,” he whispers.
    We let each other go and after he turns, I don’t see his face again. Just his slightly hunched figure under the backpack, carrying a keyboard case with both hands, moving reluctantly toward the front door. I think of how much farther Felix has to go, beyond that door and his living room and his parents and the disorienting maze of his own head. I wonder if it’s further than the rest of us have to go, or if it’s really just a question of direction.
    At Rory’s house, I exit the car along with her. Nate does too. Rory’s parents rush outside and aren’t bound by paving stones, the way Mr. Jones seemed to be, but close the distance between themselves and their daughter as quickly as possible. There’s an instant three-way hug.
    Mrs. Gold draws away and smoothes Rory’s hair, then spots me over her shoulder. She’s not sure what to say or even how to react. Rory follows her gaze, then steps toward me. She slips her hand in mine and it feels just the same as it used to.
    “Justine made everything okay,” she says. I’m glad for all the ways this is true.
    “You should have seen her in the city,” I add. “So brave. Really strong.”
    Rory’s mom’s smile turns inward so she’s biting herlips, like she’s trying to contain something. “I knew she could be,” she says. Anything else Rory wants to share with her parents is totally up to her.
    Nate shakes hands with Rory’s mom, then dad, before they all turn and go into the house. Nate opens the driver’s door and pauses. Oh. Duh . He’s waiting for me to change seats so we don’t have a cab-driver-esque situation for the final leg of the trip.
    I climb into the front passenger seat, and he gets behind the wheel, and we are driving in silence again. It should take only a few minutes to get to Hunter Farms. I don’t want us to. I wish we could drive all day, although to where I have no idea.
    Do I want this because I don’t want to go home yet? Or do I want it because I want to be with him for a little while longer?
    Ugh, it’s so much easier to just stare out the window.
    “No more shooting?” asks Nate after a little while.
    “It doesn’t feel necessary right now.”
    That sounded kind of cryptic but Nate doesn’t question. We drive on.
    “The Cannibal Apple sign,” I say as we pass it.
    “That?” He thinks about it, then laughs. “Never saw it that way. You know, I’m the one who came up with the idea for that sign.”
    “I’ve felt sorry for that poor helpless fruit for, like, years.”
    “I was imagining a world where everything was apples. The creatures, the food, the buildings. It didn’t seem cannibalistic to me. Just . . . uncomplicated. I used to pretend I lived in that world, actually. I’d go out into the orchard and lie under a tree and see all of it. Felix too.”
    He pauses, clearly lost in the memory. Takes a deep breath in, then out.
    “God, I feel like I just got a piece of myself back. With him. Do you feel that way about Rory?”
    A rush of heat into my eyes, the middle of my forehead. I refuse to cry in front of Nate Hunter twice in one day. But I am able to say, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
    Now here we are at the driveway to the house, and Nate makes the turn more slowly than seems necessary. When he brings the car to a stop, he takes an extra few moments to put it in park, to pull up the parking brake higher than I’ve ever seen it go. We sit, watching the back of the house. Nobody comes out.
    “Mom works Sundays,” he says, “and my grandparents are still at church.”
    “Did you want them to be waiting by the door for you?”
    He shrugs. “I’m glad they trust me, I guess. Besides, now I can get Ratso all situated without having to do the whole permission thing first.”
    I pick up the backpack from where’s it’s been nestled on the floor of the front passenger seat and hand it to him.He slowly unzips it and peers inside.
    “It’s okay, little dude,” says Nate, then reaches his hand in to pet the rabbit. He turns to me. “Wanna come with us to the barn?”
    I answer by jumping out of the car.
    The barn is a few hundred yards behind the house. Inside, there are three stalls