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"Spiro, I have to tell you something. You know how you told Cameron we'd be home for Christmas?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, I won't be."
"Sure you will. Tomorrow morning we'll meet Benny, then we'll call our parents, and by the afternoon we-"
"You don't understand. I'm not going back. Ever."
"All righty, then," Spiro joked. "We'll live under the pier with the skateboard family. We'll dine al fresco on water bugs. I'll do my bar mitzvah on a skateboard."
"I'm serious," I insisted. "I can't go home."
"Of course you can-"
"I can't. If you knew what I did..."
"What? Oh. I know! You didn't do all the chores on your mother's list. A capital offense."
I could barely breathe. "I did something so terrible."
A beat. And then not a question, but a statement, as Spiro realized what I meant.
"This is about Eragon. Isn't it," he decided.
The music stopped. Cameron coughed. A big wave slammed into the pier. Everything was dangerous. People got sick. Drowned. Died. Lives changed forever.
I couldn't breathe.
"Andy? What happened that night?"
Breathe in, breathe out,, in, out. That was how you stayed alive.
"When you went to the deli, what happened?" Spiro pressed.
A fist tightened around my heart. I saw stars that weren't in the sky. I had to tell him, someone. I couldn't live with it anymore.
"You can tell me, Andy."
I opened my mouth.
"What happened?"
No words came. Spiro would hate me forever if he know. Everyone would hate me as much as I hated myself.
"I can't talk about it," I said desperately.
"You can, Andy. It can't be so terrible that-"
"I said I don't want to talk about it." I scrambled to my feet and gathered the filthy blanket around me. "I'll go and sleep on the beach if you don't shut up!
"Spiro stood up, too. "So instead of talking to me you're going to run away from home forever?"
"Yes."
"Class, repeat after me: Andy Baxter has lost her mind."
"Shut up, Spiro."
"You don't have any place to go! What are you going to do, live here with them?" Spiro flung his hands toward the skaters. "Pretend Cameron is your mom? Marry Zeus and skateboard off into the sunset?"
"Maybe!"
"It's stupid, Andy! And I' never see you again."
"So?"
"So?" Spiro echoed. "That's all you have to say? So?"
We stared at each other, both of us breathing hard. He gathered the blanket around his bony shoulders, and turned to look out toward the dark sea.
"When person A loves person B," he began, "person A gets upset at the thought of never seeing person B again."
He meant me.
He meant to loved me.
But now I knew love was a poisonous thing. It had turned me into a murderer. I would die with my secret before I would tell.
"It's better that way," I lied, "because person B doesn't love person A back."
He blinked. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds. I watched Spiro's eyes disappear into the moonlight. I couldn't believe I said that.
Then I got thinking: Do I really want to leave home... forever?
There was only one way to find out.