Page 89 of Promise Me Sunshine

“I’m so tired,” I whisper, dropping my forehead down to my knees.

He gives my back a firm hand, the kind of pressure you use to flatten a grilled cheese in a pan. “Just give it up,” he says. “Don’t hold it in.”

So I cry. Good and hard for a long time. New friends are exhilarating, but they’re also exhausting. I’ve spent the entire day pretending I’m not bleeding on the inside. The emotion fights its way out of me in waves. I lean forward, dunk my hands in the icy river, and scrub at my tears and snot. I take a deep breath and stick my tongue all the way out. “Ahhhhhhh. That’s better.”

“Good.”

“I think that’s all I needed to cry. For now.”

We lie back on the ground and drape the sleeping bag over ourselves, eyes on the unfathomable expanse of black distance and burning stars.

“You know,” I say eventually, my eyes glued to the cosmos, “in my normal life, when I’m not grieving, I think I’m a really simple bitch.”

He laughs. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I think I’m used to feeling one feeling at a time. If I’m happy, I’m happy. If I’m lonely, I’m totally lonely. If I’m bored, well, you get it. I get one feeling and just feel the absolute crap out of it…But these days…”

He nods. “All the feelings?”

“At once! I didn’t know anyone could ever be thisconfused. How do other people handle feeling so many things at the same time?”

He considers this. “Well. Usually poorly. And with very little functionality.”

“What do you mean?”

He takes a deep breath. “I mean that when people are feeling a thousand things at once, that’s when the wheels come off. They start messing up at work or in their marriages or whatever. Nobody livesskillfullywhen they’re experiencing this sort of thing.”

“Miles, you are, like, freakishly insightful.”

“I’m really not sure about that.”

“Come on. There’s no way you haven’t heard that from other people.”

He shakes his head. “You’ve seen me with other people. You just think I’m insightful because you’re currently experiencing the one thing I’m an expert at.”

“You really think grief is so singular that you can’t apply some of the rules to other situations?”

He shrugs. “I’m not that close with very many people, so I guess I haven’t tried very hard to do that.”

“Why aren’t you close with very many people?” I demand. “You’re charming the pants off Rica and Jericho and Jeffy.”

“Honestly, Lenny? I think they like me becauseyoulike me. Not that I’m not…I just mean that the Miles who engineered this whole camping trip, fed everybody, that guy existsbecauseyou’re in my life.”

“Well, that’s mutual, okay?! I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t here.” I try to say it forcefully, firmly, like there’s absolutely no weirdness about saying it. But also my stomach has nearly dropped into the river and my heart has started racing. I need to get this conversation back on track andfast. “What about your friends back home? Do you keep in touch?”

“Well, most of my friends were Kira’s friends. And I moved away. So…no. I have a few old friends I check in with now and then, but…I drove a lot of people away after my mom and Anders died.” His hand scrape-scrapes across his stubble. “Well…maybe I drovesomeof them away. Some of them ran away.” He turns and smirks at me. “Grieving people are scary.”

“Tell me about it,” I say with a laugh. “There’s no telling what we might say or do.”

“Even Kira was freaked out sometimes. She said I had a dark place where she couldn’t get to me. Once I realized that that was separating me from, you know, the world, I tried to stop showing it. But when you don’t show your whole self…it’s harder to be close with people and…yeah. Here I am.”

I look at him for a long while. Long enough that he finally tears his eyes away from the stars and tips his head to look at me too.

“Is that why you have such a hard time connecting with Reese and Ainsley?” I ask. “You…don’t show them your whole self?”

His lips purse and he turns back to the stars. “Yeah. That and probably because the stakes are so high. They’re my only family left. I can’t help but choke.”

I mull this over for a bit. “You’re so natural with me. Which must mean that the stakes aren’t high with me?”

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