Ariana, a girl he thought he loved before he actually knew what love was, had promised to go with him when he kicked AWOL, but when he showed up at her door in the middle of the night, she wouldn’t even step over the threshold. It was as if there was an invisible barrier between them that could not be breached. She was remorseful, but more than that, she seemed relieved to be on the other side of that door, still welcome in her own home. It made it painfully clear how truly alone he was.
Connor was angry at her that night, and he held on to that anger for a long time. Now, however, he’s more angry at himself. Wanting her to join him in this seedy fugitive life was pure selfishness. If he truly cared for her, he would have protected her from it, rather than pull her into it.
So much has changed since then. Connor remembers hearing somewhere that it takes seven years for one’s body to purge itself of all its biological matter and replace it. Every seven years, everyone is literally a new person. For Connor, he couldn’t be more different after two years. It’s as if he’s been unwound and put back together again.
Will his parents recognize the change? Will they care? Perhaps they’ll see a stranger at their door. Or maybe they’ll be strangers to him. And then there’s his brother, Lucas. Connor can’t help but imagine him as the same thirteen-year-old he was. He won’t be. What must it be like to be the younger brother of the notorious Akron AWOL. Lucas must despise him.
The journey here began well enough. Sonia didn’t offer him her car, of course. They both knew he had to leave no ties to the antique shop, in case he got caught. Instead he stole a car that had small dunes of runoff mud wedged beneath the tires, a clear indication that it hadn’t been moved for a while, and wouldn’t be immediately missed. He could probably bring it back, park it in the same place and the owners wouldn’t even know it was gone.
The drive from Akron to Columbus took less than two hours. That was the easy part. But actually going to his old front door—that was a different story.
The reconnaissance ride through his neighborhood earlier that afternoon was the first indication of how difficult this would be. Memories of his pre-AWOL life kept leaping out so vividly, he sometimes swerved the car as if they were actual obstacles in his path—just as he did when he retrieved the stem cells with Risa and Beau. What a waste that whole excursion will have been if they can’t fix the printer. He can tell himself his reason for going home is to enlist his father’s help in repairing it, but Risa was right, it’s just an excuse. Still, if they’ve had the change of heart he dreams they’ve had, it wouldn’t be out of the question.
When he drove through his neighborhood today, it looked remarkably the same. Somehow in his mind’s eye, Connor imagined it would look vaguely postapocalyptic: overgrown, underwatered, and indefinably forlorn, as if somehow the entire suburb suffered without him. But no. The lawns and hedges were all trimmed to good-neighbor standards. He considered driving down Ariana’s street, but decided against it. Some parts of the past need to stay exactly where they are.
When he finally turned onto his street, he had to keep both hands firmly on the wheel to keep them from shaking.
Home sweet home.
It looked perfectly inviting on the outside, even if the invitation was false. For a moment, it crossed his mind that his family might have moved—until he saw the LASITR1 license plate on a shiny new Nissan coupe in the driveway. His brother’s? No, Lucas would be fifteen now, still too young to have a license. Perhaps one of his parents downsized from a sedan, having one less son to take up space.
A window was open upstairs, and Connor could hear the riffs of an electric guitar. Only then did he remember that his brother was begging for one around the time their parents signed Connor’s unwind order. The music bears none of the acoustic skills of Cam Comprix. It’s raucously dissonant—just the kind of thing that would irritate their father. Good for Lucas.
Connor had driven by twice, scouring the street for hidden officers in unmarked cars, and found none. No one would still be on the lookout for him here, now that the Juvenile Authority is convinced that the Hopi are giving Connor political asylum halfway across the country.
He could easily have made his appearance then—there was no good reason to delay it—but he made this detour anyway as a stalling tactic.
He needed to weigh Risa’s dire warnings about going home.
He needed to search his own heart to know if he really needs to risk this.
So he went to the ledge, like he had done so many times in the past when he needed to think.
The ledge is cramped and crisscrossed with the webs of oblivious spiders who have no concept of a world larger than this overpass. Funny, but all the time he spent here brooding over how unfair his life was—in the days before it actually became unfair—Connor never knew what the sign actually read on the other side. He found out that day he drove past it with Risa and Beau.
THIS LANE MUST EXIT.
Thinking about it makes him laugh, although he can’t say exactly why.
It’s dark out now. It’s been dark for a while. If he’s going to do this, he can’t wait much longer. He wonders if they’ll invite him in, and if they do, will he accept? He knows he has to keep the visit short, just in case they secretly call the police. He’ll have to watch them. Keep them both in sight the whole time he’s there. That is, if he goes in at all. He’s still not beyond aborting the whole thing at the last minute.
Finally he pulls himself over the railing, leaving the ledge behind, and returns to the car, which he parked nearby. He takes his time starting it. He takes his time driving to his street. It’s so unlike him to do anything slowly, but this act of return—it has such inertia, it’s like pushing a boulder uphill. He can only hope it doesn’t roll back to crush him.
Some lights are on in the house: the living room lights downstairs and in Lucas’s room upstairs. The light is off in the room that had been his. He wonders what it is now. A sewing room? No that’s stupid, his mother didn’t sew. Maybe just storage for all the junk that always accumulates in the house. Or maybe they left it like it was. Is there actually a part of him that hopes that? He knows that’s even less likely than a sewing room.
He passes the house, parks down the street, and pulls the four pages of his letter out of his pocket. He read it several times while on the ledge to prepare himself for this moment. It didn’t.
He walks past the driveway and turns down the little flagstone path to the front door. Anticipation speeds his heart and makes it feel as if it’s rising in his chest, trying to escape.
Maybe he’ll just hand them the letter and leave. Or maybe he’ll talk to them. He doesn’t yet know. It’s the not knowing that
makes it so hard—not knowing what they will do, but even worse, having no clue what he’s going to do either.
But whatever happens, good or bad, it will bring closure. He knows it will.
He’s halfway to the front door when a figure steps out of the shadows of the porch and stands directly in his path. Then suddenly, there’s a sharp stinging in Connor’s chest. He’s down on the ground before he even realizes he’s been shot with a tranq, and his vision goes blurry, so he can’t even tell who his attacker is as he draws near. For a moment something about his face makes him think of Argent Skinner—but it’s not Argent. Not by a long shot.
“How unceremonious,” the man says. “This moment should be grander.”