That week at school, Joaquin had turned the corner down the hallway toward his English class and come face-to-face with Birdie and Colin Maller.
They were kissing, Birdie’s long arm wrapped around Colin’s neck the same way that she used to wrap it around Joaquin’s. If he thought about it too much, Joaquin could almost feel the warmth of her skin, the heat of her mouth, the way she always smelled good, like soap and shampoo.
Joaquin had thought that nothing would ever hurt as bad as breaking his arm, but he could have broken both arms and legs and it still would have been a drop in the bucket compared to how he felt when he saw Birdie in Colin’s arms.
He stumbled backward, not caring if he missed English class, or the rest of school, or even the rest of his life. He had to get out of there, and he was almost out the door when someone called him back.
It was Birdie’s friend Marjorie. “Joaquin, wait!” she yelled, chasing after him, and Joaquin stopped with his hand on the door, his chest heaving like it had after he’d pushed Adam against the wall, adrenaline flooding his system and overwhelming his senses.
“Wait,” Marjorie said again, even though Joaquin hadn’t moved. “Joaquin, she’s just trying to make you jealous. She doesn’t even like him.”
Joaquin laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Looks like she likes him a lot,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Tell the happy couple I said congratulations.”
And then he was gone, Marjorie calling after him, the school behind him as he started to run.
By Saturday morning, Joaquin was a mess. On the outside, he looked pretty good. He showered and washed his hair and wore the shirt that Birdie had bought for him when they’d first started dating because she said it made his eyes look good. Joaquin had dark brown eyes, so he wasn’t exactly sure how a blue-checkered, button-down shirt could make them pop (Birdie’s word, not his), but Birdie had always been smart about things like that, so he trusted her opinion.
Joaquin wondered if his mom had eyes like his. He wondered if she still knew his dad. He wondered if she even wanted to see Joaquin and his sisters, or talk to them, or if Joaquin would only be a reminder of the worst time of her life. Would she think that he was trying too hard, dressing up for her? The last time he had gone to see her, he had worn his favorite Spider-Man T-shirt (Spider-Man didn’t have parents either, just like Joaquin), but she had never shown up, so maybe it didn’t matter if he wore his best shirt or not.
Joaquin looked in the mirror, straightened his collar, and wondered if he was the biggest idiot on the planet for trying so hard to find the woman who had left him so easily.
Mark and Linda were in the kitchen downstairs, eating breakfast and reading the paper. (Joaquin suspected that theirs was the only house on their street that still actually got the newspaper delivered every day.) “Whoa, looking fancy on a Saturday,” Mark said when Joaquin walked into the room. “Is it Formal Wear Day at the arts center?”
Any other day, Joaquin could have taken Mark’s teasing tone without a problem. It wasn’t any other day, though. “Why?” Joaquin said. “Is it too much?”
“No, no, you look great,” Mark said. “You just never really dress up, that’s all.”
Things with Linda and Mark had been a little off ever since they had given Joaquin the car. Or, more accurately, things with Joaquin had been off ever since they had given him the car. He had only driven it twice in the past week, once to work and once to go to the grocery store for Linda, but otherwise, it just sat in the driveway, a huge, metal reminder of all the things that Joaquin would never be able to pay back to his foster parents.
The more they gave him, the bigger the world felt, and Joaquin needed a fence, an edge, something to keep him from falling off the face of the thing. Everyone had a breaking point, after all, and the fact that Joaquin had spent almost three years with Mark and Linda and he still hadn’t been able to find theirs made him nervous. He had thought turning down the adoption would do it, that they would put him back in foster care and then Joaquin would know how the fairy tale ended, but then Mark and Linda turned around and bought him a car instead.
Joaquin felt like he was the star of a video game, dodging from one level to the next, swinging from vine to vine in search of some treasure that always seemed to be just out of reach. Some kids didn’t make it that far—some ran out of lives, or chances, or hope. But Joaquin had played long enough to know that for every level he managed to pass, for each thread of hope that Mark and Linda gave him, there was just something bigger, even more menacing, waiting for him at the end. Joaquin knew that he’d never get the treasure without first slaying the dragon.
So Joaquin started pushing back. At first, it was just ignoring Linda the first time she asked him to do something, or pretending like he didn’t hear her when they both knew that he had. He told Mark he would help him mow the front and back lawn on Wednesday evening, but stayed upstairs instead, listening to music. By Friday night, things were tense at dinner and Joaquin disappeared into his room without helping with the dishes. “You want to give Linda a hand?” Mark had asked.
“Nope,” Joaquin said, and they hadn’t answered, which made him even more nervous, out of control, teetering on the edge, bracing for a fall.
By Saturday morning, though, with a stomach full of butterflies, Joaquin felt ready for a fight.
“Hey, Joaq?” Linda said, glancing up from the paper. “Can you take a seat? Mark and I want to talk to you about something.”
Joaquin felt himself roll his eyes before he could stop himself, but Mark just pulled out a chair and patted it, so he sat. “What?”
“You’ve been . . . well, honestly, Joaquin, you’ve been sort of a jerk,” Linda said. “To me, to Mark. Is it . . . did we do something? Did we say something to hurt you? We just wish you’d talk to us about it.”
“Why do you always think it’s about you?” Joaquin snapped. “Why do you always think it’s something that you did? Why can’t it just be about me?”
Mark shrugged, pushing his chair back from the table a little. “Okay, let’s make it about you, then. Why are you being a jerk?”
It would have hurt a lot less if Joaquin hadn’t thought that they were right.
“Do you like the car?” Linda asked. “Or was it too much?”
Joaquin shrugged a little, crossing his arms over his chest. Just thinking about the car made his stomach flip, tossing the butterflies every which way. “I don’t really care,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t even ask for it. You’re the ones who got it for me.”