"You can do it."

Jaw clenching so tightly I could see the bones shifting under his skin, he brought his pen to the paper. Even his ears wiggled slightly as he worked.

Very slowly, he wrote: She did "She died," I blurted out, with way too much excitement, considering the subject matter. "That means she died."

Suzie nodded, still gaping. I didn't think she'd closed her mouth for more than a second since Seb had revealed himself. "R-right. What about...her name? Can you tell me her name?"

He gave us a rueful smile, and with less insecurity in his grip, he scrawled: MOM. MOM.

I chuckled and rubbed his back. "Yeah, that's okay. You were little."

Suzie jumped in, too. "Of course. You're doing wonderfully, really. Now, um...what about...do you recall...how she pa.s.sed away?"

She looked really nervous asking that. Her hands were so sweaty they'd left imprints on her pink pants.

Seb swallowed hard. The pen didn't move. He just glanced back at me once, and I knew.

"Drugs." s.h.i.t, I was such an idiot. "She died from drugs."

He wet his lower lip, wincing when he struck the place where it'd been split.

"Is that right? An overdose?" Suzie asked.

He nodded.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," she responded automatically, and in the same breath launched into her next thought. "Do you remember when she pa.s.sed away?"

Inhaling slowly, Seb shook his head and started to add some shading around his mother's eyes and cheekbones.

"Do you remember anything else? How old you were maybe? Or even what time of year it was?" Suzie pressed.

Seb stopped drawing and considered for a moment. Then he wrote: hot. hot.

"Your mom was hot?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes at me. No, r.e.t.a.r.d. No, r.e.t.a.r.d.

"Oh...yeah. You mean it was hot out. It was summer."

He made a little checkmark on the paper, soft puffs of air coming from his nose. The idea that I could still make him laugh, even at a time like this, was so exhilarating I felt faint.

"Okay. Then let's say she pa.s.sed away in the summer." Suzie didn't want to get off track. I could just imagine how many questions she had for him, now that she knew knew. I'd felt that way not too long ago. "Can you tell me about how long it was before...before DCFS took custody of you?"

She'd chosen her words carefully, but we knew exactly what she meant: how long before he'd been rescued from whatever nightmare had swallowed him up after his mother's death.

From the t t in the word hot, Seb began to draw a circle. It went all the way around until it touched the same letter again. in the word hot, Seb began to draw a circle. It went all the way around until it touched the same letter again.

A full circle. A year.

"You found Seb in the summertime?" I asked. "Maybe it was about a year, then."

Suzie rested her round face in her hands. "Uh"-she cleared her throat with a watery cough-"yes."

Seb didn't respond. He was retracing his mother's face, fixing some of the wobbly lines.

"She was was beautiful," I murmured, leaning in to press my cheek against him. Seb's nod moved my head with his, and I felt his jaw stretch wide in a yawn. beautiful," I murmured, leaning in to press my cheek against him. Seb's nod moved my head with his, and I felt his jaw stretch wide in a yawn.

"Sebastian...this is...wonderful." Suzie's voice was still thick. "Thank you so much for trusting me and telling me this. You've given us a lot of information to work with. If you think of anything else, you'll let me know, won't you?"

Seb put down the pen, blinking sleepily.

With a shaky breath, Suzie stood. "The police will be here soon-not because you're in trouble, Alex," she added hastily, "but we do need to make a report, and we'll have to find you two a place to spend the night."

I tightened my arm around Seb. "Can't we just stay here?"

Suzie shook her head. "I'm sorry, Alex. Besides, I only have the one bedroom.

"That's okay. Seb and I can share the couch."

She chuckled. "I don't think so."

"What? Why not?"

"Because you're teenage boys, and from what I can tell, you're in a relationship."

"So?" I squared my jaw. "What the h.e.l.l does that mean? We already sleep together. And we've already-"

"Alex"-Suzie held out a hand to stop me-"if I had kids of my own, they'd have the same rules. You're only sixteen. You have plenty of time to be together. It doesn't all have to happen so fast."

I kept scowling. "Fine. Whatever. But Seb and I are are together, and no one's gonna make us slow down if we don't want to." I turned back to make sure Seb was on board with my declaration and found him admiring me with a smirk. together, and no one's gonna make us slow down if we don't want to." I turned back to make sure Seb was on board with my declaration and found him admiring me with a smirk.

That was a yes, right?

"Just give me a moment to change," Suzie said, heading down the hallway. "I can trust you to wait right there?"

I rolled my eyes. I didn't have the energy to get off the couch, let alone make a run for it.

She vanished into her room, and a split second later, Seb closed in for a surprise kiss. Open-mouthed, and a little sloppy, but that might've been on purpose. At first his lips were cold from the ice but it wasn't long before they burned, pulling me deeper and deeper into a nothing-exists-outside-of-this kind of kiss. I snaked my arms up and down his back, a soft moan escaping my throat. We gasped for breath and dove back in again. Some blood mixed with our saliva-his blood-but the bitter taste of guilt washed away as we continued to plunge into each other, dissolving it into something warm and salty and right right.

When my mouth felt bruised and raw from the friction, Seb finally pulled back, drawing out my bottom lip with one final suck. Then I turned and caught Suzie in a pantsuit out of the corner of my eye.

Her cheeks were as pink as her previous outfit. Mine probably turned a similar shade.

Well, at least she knew I meant what I'd said. No one was going to come between us, if I could help it.

Her phone rang. It had to be the cops, and whoever else she'd called, asking to be buzzed in.

I gripped Seb's hand.

Please, G.o.d. Let me be able to help it.

Chapter 27: Outgrown.

"We're really happy to have a s.p.a.ce for you," counselor Jessica said. She looked like a younger version of Suzie-Suzie in the sweats, because she was in a lavender tracksuit. Same mousy brown hair and rounder body, too, though Jessica was a lot peppier.

A couple of bedroom doors opened as she led me through the sprawling house. Floorboards creaked under my leaden feet and curious eyes peeked out to find the source of the noise, but I was too exhausted to pay much attention. This new place seemed a lot like Ms. Loretta's, except with cheerful camp-counselor style staff to keep me in line instead of those big old ladies.

I sort of missed them.

"Your room will be right down here," Jessica went on, gesturing to a small s.p.a.ce with two desks, bunk beds and mirrored closet doors. "You'll be sharing with Carlos. He's a character, but very friendly, I promise."

The very friendly Carlos barely looked over from his top bunk, where he was busy typing away on a laptop. I couldn't have cared less. The roommate didn't matter. Neither did the room itself, or the house, or Jessica the peppy resident counselor. All that mattered was that I was only a mile away from Seb, at his facility's off-campus housing for "highly functioning youth."

I was surprised to hear that Suzie found me highly functioning highly functioning, all things considered, but I wasn't going to argue.

"Maybe you two would like a moment to get acquainted?" Jessica suggested. "I'll be back in a few to check up on you before bed."

As soon as she and her cheerful smile headed off, I zeroed in on the bottom bunk. Leaving my new bag of clothing and the trusty backpack by the door, I crawled into the temporary haven.

I wrapped myself up in the blankets and ran my hand over the empty s.p.a.ce beside me. That s.p.a.ce was meant for Seb. I could still imagine the feel of his hair pa.s.sing through my fingers, nearly two whole days since I'd last touched a shimmering strand. Two days since I'd last seen his face, troubled but trusting, as he'd been taken away.

And now another long night with that image seared on my brain stretched out before me.

I scrunched my eyes shut and gathered an armful of pillow, trying to ease the loneliness. It has to be like this. He's just a mile away. The faster you go to sleep, the sooner you'll see him again. It has to be like this. He's just a mile away. The faster you go to sleep, the sooner you'll see him again.

This arrangement Suzie had worked out was probably the best I could have hoped for, and yet my heart still ached like someone had torn a piece right out of it. Of course, it could've also been the bruises, but once my lies had been discovered the paramedic had a.s.sured me nothing was broken inside.

So it was just lovesickness, then. Lovesickness mixed with the horrible, very real fear that Seb might disappear again without my presence there to maintain him.

A thump startled me into opening my eyes-Carlos jumping down from his bunk. Then I saw Carlos himself, and my eyes opened a little wider.

He was a small kid, probably all of five-four. He had on tight pink shorts that I hadn't seen when he was under the covers, and the left side of his hair was streaked with purple. His nails were painted a silvery-gray and he wore a rainbow bracelet on his wrist.

I must've had my mouth open while I gaped at him, because suddenly he was flashing brown eyes on me in anger. "I hope you're not thinking about starting no trouble. 'Cause I can handle myself if it comes to that."

My brows drew up at the challenging note in his tone. It had to take guts to talk to me that way...not to mention dress like that in the first place. A kid like him would've been eaten alive at my old school.

"Take a picture. It'll last longer," he snapped, placing his hands on his narrow waist. "Then you can beat one off to it later."

I shook my head to cover a snort of laughter. "Sorry, man. Didn't mean to stare."

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered under his breath. Then he kicked at my backpack. "You gonna unpack? Or are you not staying long?"

"Not sure," I admitted. There were no guarantees on this placement, just like there hadn't been for any of the others. Just hope. Tired, battered, but amazingly still alive-and-kicking Hope.

I stood up to grab my bag, trying to think positively as I unzipped it. Maybe if I acted like this was permanent, I'd help make that happen. I found an empty drawer and clumsily flipped the backpack over to empty the contents.

A few photographs, creased and water-stained, slipped to the floor during the process.

Carlos bent to pick them up. "This your family?"

I s.n.a.t.c.hed them out of his hands before he could get a good look. "Mhm."

"There are some empty frames in the den."

"Frames?"

"Yeah. Frames." He made a rectangle with his dainty fingers. "For putting pictures in. You know."

"I know what frames are," I grumbled, squaring the photographs into a neater pile. My mother stared up at me from the top of the stack, a bit of mud stuck on her face from her brush with dirty alley water.

I'd never thought about putting the photographs on display. Of course, I hadn't really had a place to display them before...but now that I did, I wasn't sure I wanted to be faced with them day after day, to be reminded of a past I no longer felt eager to claim.

I licked my finger and wiped off the smudge before gently tucking the pictures back in the drawer.

Counselor Jessica popped her head in the doorway. "Getting ready for bed, Alex? I know you've had a long day."

And it would be an even longer night.

A gentle tapping awoke me. "Alex? Are you up yet? It's nearly eleven-thirty."

I peeled back one lid at a time, re-accustoming myself to the new surroundings. Carlos was at a desk on his computer, still in the pink shorts and comfortably slouched over like he was settled in for a lazy Sat.u.r.day. The little white buds in his ears explained why he hadn't noticed Jessica at the door-I could hear a faint strain of music coming from the earphones, so whatever he was listening to had to be on pretty freaking loud.

The knocks grew less gentle. "Alex? Your social worker called. She said you might be interested in heading up to Hill View to have lunch with your friend?"

I sprang out of the bed like I was on fire, startling Carlos into a duck-and-crouch move that left him in a little ball under the desk.

"Yes! Oof." I tripped over my shoes in the mad dash across the room. "Yeah, I do!"

I crashed into the wall and flung open the door at the same time, just as Jessica took a step back. "Oh, well, there's a shuttle leaving in a few minutes for afternoon activities. I just wanted to let you know."

"Yeah. Thanks. I'll be ready."

Running around-like a headless chicken-I threw on the first clothing I reached. Carlos crawled out from his hiding place, too busy eyeing me like the insane person I was to be embarra.s.sed I'd scared him.

"Where does that shuttle thing pick people up?" I asked breathlessly, stopping for only a second to run my hand through my bed-hair.

He pointed down the hallway toward the front of the house. "Um, on the corner. To the left."

"Thanks, man!" Giddy and hyper-charged, I clapped him on the back a little too hard and raced out of the house.