Chapter 24: Come Get Me

"I wrote that on Thursday," Drake said into my hair.

He had not moved. His chest rose and fell under my cheek, and his voice was very steady.

"I set it to go out after the concert, if you chose to look at me. I swear it's the last one."

"You said never again, an hour ago."

"I know. It was already written." He breathed. "After this one, I'm done."

I lifted my head.

"What's at the shelter?" I said.

"Nothing. A bench." He was looking at the ceiling.

"I go to the guardrail on Alder Road every Wednesday at eleven twelve."

"It's a quarter mile from the shelter. I stand there for ten minutes."

"Every Wednesday?"

"Since July. It's where he stopped." His throat moved.

"The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the last time I'm going."

"I sat with my mother over Bowen's phone this week. She laughed at the guitar jokes."

I put my palm flat over his heart.

"You sold your car," I said. "How would you get to me?"

"I'd walk."

"It's twenty minutes by car."

"Then I'd start early," Drake said.

I lay there looking at him for a long time.

He did not ask me to come.

He had said it once and left it in the room for me to pick up or not.

Wednesday night my mother stood at the front door in her coat, with her hand on the knob.

"You're sure?" she said.

"I'm sure."

"It's going to sleet."

"I know."

She took off her good gloves, the gray wool ones, and put them in my palm. She did not say anything else.

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