And you have to wonder what it is that you'd do, don't you, Mr. Wayne? You have to wonder if you could go to such great lengths, break commandments, break lives, just to get home.

On Sunday Paolo comes over. He kisses Grammy's cheek and her face just starts glowing. She grabs onto his hand and doesn't let go.

"So, you're our little Lily's beau?" she murmurs.

I gasp. She shoots me a look, all mischief-eyed.

Paolo just smiles. "Yep."

"You treat her well, young man."

"Gram!" I cross my arms over my chest.

"I will," Paolo says and she lets his hand go. He stands up and we take off outside. My dad's backyard is lush with big Scottish pine trees he planted himself, and a rock wall and a garden. We hold hands and just stroll around until we get closer to the woods and the garden. This is a good place because spying eyes can't see us. Clouds pass over the sun and it gets a little darker. The wind moves through the trees, making the branches whisper against each other.

"You know my gram's watching," I say and sit on my dad's tractor. It's huge. I have to climb up it to get in the seat.

"She's cute."

"She's embarrassing."

"Grandmothers are supposed to be embarrassing." He starts scrutinizing the tractor. "I think I could vault this."

"Vault it?" I make a fake sports-announcer voice. "Paolo, Mr. Parkour Man, begins his preparations."

"It'll be easy, like in gymnastics."

I shake my head. "This is way bigger than a gymnastics vault."

"I know." He backs up, surveying. Then he comes back to me. Some chickadees trill in the woods. He reaches his hands up. "Hop off?"

"Say please," I tease.

"Please."

I hop down and he catches me. My nose smashes into his sweatshirt and I laugh.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm good."

He squeezes my hand and lets go. "Okay. Watch."

He backs up, runs at the tractor. His body launches into the air and goes almost horizontal, I think, right where the seat is. Then he tucks in and somersaults to a perfect landing on the other side.

I gasp. "You show-off."

"It's just about figuring out where you want to go and not letting anything get in your way," he says, trotting back around.

I remember to breathe. The chickadee stops singing. "Do you think you can do that with life?"

"That's the point, I think. You take the confidence parkour gives you and bring it into everything."

I nod. A cloud that's been blocking the sun moves out of the way. "That's amazing. You'll teach me, right?"

He smiles, comes closer, pulls me against him. The soft cotton of his sweatshirt kisses against me.

My arms move around him, wrapping just above his waist. His voices comes out sweet like new corn. "I'm glad you're here with your dad now."

"I am too."

After the movie, we go up Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island and look for UFOs. I think that all the things everyone sees in the sky around here are military planes they're testing out. In Cutler there's a naval tracking station, and up in Millinocket there's an air force base. I mean, it only makes sense. Still, it's way more fun pretending.

We all get out of the car and huddle up on a granite boulder looking at the sky, waiting for aliens to come make our lives exciting, to whisk us away and make us heroes in our own adventure.

Paolo sits behind me and I lean back against his chest. The zipper pull on his sweatshirt digs into my back. I don't mind.

"We're going to go kiss each other until we can't breathe," Sasha says, standing up and taking Stuart's hand.

Stuart jumps straight up into the air, taps his feet together and yells, "Yippee!"

Then they take off.

"Watch out for alien abductors," Paolo yells after them. Then he waits an entire millisecond and puts his arms around me. It's good to rest against him, all nestled up beneath a blanket. We sit there for a while and look at the stars. I don't get scared or anything, because Paolo feels so solid, the way I imagine you would feel, Mr. Wayne.

Instead, I just nestle in and sigh and don't think about anything but the stars. I kind of turn my head so I can look up at him, and Paolo leans his head down. His face gets so close. His lips, the lips that stretch above his jaw, the soft above the solid, they open a little bit. My eyes blink shut. Our lips push against each other, long and slow. My heart beats fast and swoony. My body turns more so my hands can reach into his hair, so it's easier for my mouth to touch his. Soon, I'm kneeling in front of him and his arms around me push me closer and closer, like we're going to meld together, and I think that maybe I should try to explain this to Olivia and Sasha somehow.

He tastes like cinnamon gum. I must taste like mint, because Sasha kept feeding me tic tacs in the movie theater.

When we stop he says, "You sound like you're purring."

I jump away, land on my butt. "Oh God."

"No, it's good." He stands up. "It's sweet."

I hide my face in my hands. He touches the back of my head, feels the big lumps there and then he screws it all up and says, "You shouldn't move back to your mom's."

I wait and stare at things, the blanket, the sky, pebbles. In acting, we would call this a poignant silence.

"You shouldn't. Not unless that guy moves out. He could be dangerous."

"Uh-huh," I say, standing up too. My voice a flat dead thing in the night.

"And if he's your dad ... those clippings ..."

"Wait. How do you know that?"

"Sasha."

"Sasha," I choke, like a half-laugh sort of thing. "I'll have to kill her."

"She's trying to help."

"Uh-huh."

"We're all trying to help you."

"Right. Let's help Lily. She's our crusade."

"It's not like that." Paolo grabs my hand. I try not to hold it, but I'm weak and I grab on tight just like when I was jumping up onto the bike rack at school. It steadies me.

Above us a plane roars, but there are none of the airplane lights on the wings and the shadow seems more rectangular somehow, not really plane-like. It blocks out the stars as it passes. The wind of it moves my hair against my face. Without thinking, I move closer.

"Did you see that? Did you see that?" Sasha comes running out of the woods. "It was right there. Did you see it? A real UFO!"

I try to nod, but I'm too busy crying, too busy.

Stuart follows her, tripping and then righting himself. He jumps up and down, pounding his chest. "Take me! Come back and take me! Get me out of here! I hate Merrimack! I want to go to Planet Zigna, baby! Or you could drop me off in New York! Broadway, maybe?"

Sasha notices me. Her face turns sad. She hauls me up and says, "Okay. Enough. It's time to be empowered. It's time for the plan."

The first house we go to is my sister's. Brian's truck waits there. The light is on in the living room and a football announcer's voice sneaks into the lawn.

Tiptoeing, I peek in. He's on the couch. The back of his head doesn't move. The game fills the TV screen. Budweiser bottles line up on the end table.

"Who's winning?" Paolo whispers.

"Patriots," Stuart says.

"You can see that?" Paolo asks, squinting. "How can you see that?"

"He'll hear you," I tremble. "Shhhh."

"We could take him." Stuart's breath comes out in little puffs. It's cold tonight. "Just go in and take him down."

"Violence is not the answer," Sasha says all preachy. Both the boys groan.

"It isn't!" she insists. "Give me the note."

She takes the paper from my hand, runs up to the front door, opens the screen door and takes her gum out of her mouth. She smooshes it into the door and sticks the paper on it. Then she does something unbelievable. She pounds on the door.

"Run!" she yells.

Unable to make anything work, I stand there frozen. Brian clambers off of the couch. It's like when you know the bad guy's going to shoot, but you just can't move because you're worried you aren't fast enough, worried about the ladies hunkered down and hiding in the saloon. What if a stray bullet hits them? But then, you've just got to do it, just got to take your gun out of your holster and fire, no holds barred.

"Run!" Sasha yells again. She's already back at the car, opening the door.

Stuart yanks on my arm. I take off and pass him, leaping over a pothole in the driveway. I feel like I'm flying; I soar.

"Yes!" Paolo yells in the car, punching his fist into the roof as Stuart peels out.

"I can't believe you knocked, Sasha," Stuart says. "You are psycho. Psycho!"

"She's an insane woman," Paolo says from the front seat.

Sasha giggles. I don't know whether to kill her or hug her, but I settle for a hug.

"Mad?" she asks me.

"Tell everyone what I wrote on the note."

Sasha takes a real dramatic breath and says, "It said, Real men don't hit women."

"Tell her the whole thing, Sasha," Stuart says as he turns onto the highway. He sounds like her father.

She looks at me. I look at her. I put on my seat belt.

"You added something?"

She nods and tries to do her Sasha Innocent look on me.

"Just tell me."

"Swear you won't get mad?"

"Fine."

"Swear."

"I swear I won't get mad."

"It said, 'Real men don't hit women, potty face.'"

Paolo whoops and smacks his hand on the ceiling.

Stuart swerves and gets back in the right lane. He only got his license last week. He stayed back in first grade, which is why he can drive. He probably should have stayed back in drivers' ed, too.

"'Potty face?'" I ask.

"I wasn't feeling very creative." She shrugs.

Something inside me trembles in a really happy way like I've just jumped from one high building to another.

In the car, Sasha and I cuddle up in the back seat.

"Did I really just do that?" I whisper.

She nudges me with her elbow. "You went all hero on us, girl."