A Five-Minute Life

“I’ll try not to, Miss Hughes.”

Thea bolted up, eyes wide. “Oh my God, James—what’s your middle name?”

“Michael.”

“Oh my God, James Michael Whelan, call me Thea or I’ll kill you.”

I laughed. “It’s against the rules.”

Thea settled back against my shoulder. “Fuck the rules.”

I grinned over her head. And fuck you too, Doris. I gave my ex-foster mother the mental middle finger. She’s exactly who I knew she’d be.

“You can call me Thea because I know you,” Thea said. “We know each other. We’re friends, remember?”

“I remember.”

She was right. We knew each other. She knew me better than anyone, because she knew how to let me be myself. She

didn’t have to fear me going silent; I had a voice with her. Humor. The stutter was an afterthought.

We sat for a few long minutes, and then Thea’s slender body began to shake with sobs.

“It comes in waves,” she said. “Dr. Chen said to just let it flow when it does. Otherwise, it gets scarier and scarier to face all at once.”

It was against the rules, but I put my arm around her and held her tight to my chest. She burrowed into me. Fit perfectly against me. Her tears dampened my shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a mess.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I never liked this uniform anyway.”

She laughed around a sob. “You’ve held me like this before too. When I was scared and crying that night. You were the one who stopped him.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she said, hunching tighter. “I can’t deal with him right now. But this feels good. You’re a good hugger, Jimmy.”

“I try.”

She took a deep, steadying inhale. “What about you? I can’t remember that we ever talked much about you on our walks.”

“Not for lack of trying. You ask a lot of questions.”

Her laugh was a little stronger this time, but she stayed curled against me.

“For real,” she said. “What about you? Do you have family near here?”

“No.”

“Where are they?”

“Don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

I shrugged. “I never knew them. I’ve been a foster kid forever. My mother gave me up. The state told me she was a teenager and she told them my name. That’s all I know.”

“Then you were adopted?”