Free Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak Page B

a complete idiot. When that was all I could get out of him, I sat down beside him and put my arm around his shoulders, trying to comfort him. He flinched when I touched him, though, as if I’d tried to stick a knife into him, so I let my arm drop again. “Hey,” I said, “what’s wrong? Did you drink too much? Are you sick?”
    “You should probably go,” he said, not looking up from the floor to face me. His voice had fallen to almost a whisper. “I’m sorry I had you over like this.”
    “I had a good time,” I said, still not comprehending. “It’s been fun. I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”
    He looked up from the gloomy position he’d taken, and I could see that he was thinking about something. Behind those dark eyes, some unwanted thought kept floating by, like a fish behind glass, wanting to get out, to be free of his skull. “You don’t remember a lot of things, I know,” Jarrod finally said, his voice shaking a little. “But I was wondering, do you remember this?”
    He took my hand from my lap then, and held it in his. At first I thought that he was going to share a memory with me, the way he had at the park, that he was
reaching across
again. But when no memory came, and his thumb continued to softly caress my knuckles, I looked up and saw him waiting for my reaction. “We used to hold hands like this,” he said, “when we were kids. Even when we were almost thirteen. I know it must sound strange. So many other things that used to be normal, you can’t remember. But do you remember this?”
    I shook my head, slowly, but he didn’t take his hand away. I didn’t take mine away either, even though I wasn’t sure what I was even thinking, if I was thinking anything at all. Holding his hand did somehow feel normal. But I wasn’t completely receiving his message.
    “Is it there now?” he asked.
    “Is what there now?”
    “That wall you told me about. The wall that springs up inside you sometimes.”
    “No,” I said, shaking my head, even though I was starting to get nervous enough to almost wish that I had the wall there right now.
    “I’m trying to tell you something, Aidan,” said Jarrod, his voice growing smaller as he tried to admit something big.
    Sometimes I wish I could go back to that moment and wake up right then, to understand everything again, so I could do the right thing, so I could say the right thing to Jarrod. But at the time, my head was still broken.
    After it became clear that I wasn’t able to say what he hoped for, that I still didn’t know my lines, Jarrod took his hand away from mine. “I didn’t come back to Temperance because I missed it,” he said, his voice now flat as an iron. “I came back after my dad caught me with a guy and kicked me out.”
    “I thought you left because of your dad’s girlfriend,” I said, and Jarrod looked over to roll his eyes at the enormity of my stupidity.
    “Jesus, Aidan,” he said. “I made that shit up. His girlfriend has her own apartment.” He stood then, and went over to lean against the doorframe with his back to me. “I was embarrassed by the truth, okay? When I came back here and saw that something was wrong with you, that you couldn’t remember some things, I was afraid you wouldn’t remember us. Like that. Like the way we were with each other. And clearly you don’t.”
    He sighed, frustrated that I couldn’t fill in the rest of what he was trying to say. “Just go,” he said eventually. “I’m sorry I had you over like this. I was being selfish. I was hoping if we spent time together like we used to, alone, you’d remember how you felt. Which was pretty dumb of me, obviously. We were just stupid kids back then, anyway, weren’t we?”
    “Well—” I said, but Jarrod lifted a hand.
    “Please don’t,” he said, still looking down the hall instead of facing me, as if one glance from me might set him on fire. “I’m embarrassed enough. Just go, Aidan. Just go home, will