Stronger than I’d ever felt any of them before.
Elizabeth was blue, she was so damn blue, and I knew she needed to howl her sorrow at the moon, but she kept her song inside and let it fester instead.
Mark was strong and sturdy, as always, but I knew about the photo he kept in his desk drawer. The photo he didn’t think anyone knew about. The one where he and Gordo were Joe’s age, and their arms were around each other’s shoulders, grinning. Gordo was smiling at the camera, looking younger than I’d ever seen him. Mark, though. Mark only had eyes for Gordo.
I never asked if they talked before Gordo and the others left.
I hoped Gordo did the right thing.
But I never had the courage to find out.
Tanner, Chris, and Rico were there too, getting stronger every day. It was a slow process, but they were bonding like the rest of us.
Still. Four months in and I thought maybe we were barely holding ourselves together.
Maybe that’s why those two weeks I didn’t hear from Joe hurt more than it should have.
Maybe that’s why I was angry when he finally texted. From a new number, the old phones obviously tossed out.
The message was short.
We’re okay.
And I lost it.
I dialed the number.
It rang a few times, then fell off into an automated message, saying the voice mail wasn’t set up.
I called again.
And again.
And again.
It was the fifth or the sixth time when the call connected.
He didn’t say anything.
“You fucking asshole,” I snarled into the phone. “You don’t get to do that to me! You hear me? You don’t. Do you even fucking care about us? Do you? If you do, if even a part of you cares about me—about us—then you need to ask yourself if this is worth it. If what you’re doing is worth it. Your family needs you. I fucking need you.”
He didn’t speak.
But he was there, because I could hear the way his breath caught in his throat.
“You asshole,” I muttered, suddenly very, very tired. “You goddamn bastard.”
We stayed on the phone for an hour, just listening to each other breathe.
When I opened my eyes again, it was morning and my phone had died.
IT WAS six months after they left that I realized something had to give.
We couldn’t keep going on as we were.
Joe was texting more regularly, maybe once every few days, but the updates were as vague as always, and the longer it was taking, the less hope I had of when I would see them again.
Robbie, as it turned out, knew less than we did. Or so he said. He seemed as