Chapter 12: Deaf Boy

By Friday, Dash and Wilder were speaking again, in the stiff careful way of two men who had both been cut.

Wilder had not said a word about the letters on his back.

Dash had not asked him to.

They slept on opposite sides of the tape for three nights, and on the third night Wilder said, from the dark, "You can come over."

Dash had crossed the room without a sound.

He did not touch him that night.

He lay with his hand on the blanket where Wilder could feel the heat of it.

In the morning Wilder was lying with his face tipped toward him.

That was the best he had done all week.

On Friday evening the Oakes house threw its fall party.

Dash had not meant to go.

He went because Wilder said it at six o'clock, in a clean black shirt, with his hair brushed behind one ear.

"I want to see it."

"See what?" Dash said.

"The whole thing. The people who pay ten dollars."

Wilder tied his sneakers.

"I'm tired of hiding in the dark. If they're going to look at me, they can look at me."

"They're going to look for the wrong reasons."

"Let them." Wilder stood up. "You said you'd ask me. So ask me."

Dash looked at him.

"Would you like to go to a party with me?" he said.

"Yes," Wilder said. "I would."

The Oakes house was packed to the walls.

There were eighty people in the main room, with red cups and a speaker the size of a refrigerator.

The bodies were packed so tightly that the floor shook.

Dash kept one hand on the small of Wilder's back and the other on a beer.

He had never walked into a room like this one with a hand on someone.

Heads turned.

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