Away We Go Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t see each other. Polo Club’s just on hiatus.” Another half-truth. I don’t tell her our hiatus has been going on for, like, eight months. I don’t tell her we’re waiting for Zach to fall sick, sick enough to be taken away. Then we’ll find out. We’ll find out where all the sick kids go.
    â€œI know you don’t want to hear this, but it could help to see someone,” she says.
    Aha. Of course. Enlisting me in Westing’s counseling services is her latest Noah Salvation Initiative. Before this, she’d tried dragging me to chapel, then to Bible study, where I posed queries like “If God is omnipotent, why did he need to rest on the seventh day? Imagine if he’d powered through. We might’ve had unicorns.” I was encouraged to limit my participation in future meetings.
    â€œIt could help you work through your feelings,” she continues.
    â€œYou’re right,” I say. “I don’t want to hear it.”
    Guilt simmers inside me. She and I take out the trash in silence after that. Once we finish with Gates, we move on to Lombardy. Maybe I’m feeling guilty for being brusque with her. Maybe I’m lonely. Maybe it’s the tertiary care informational flyer I find under a chair in a corner of the room. Or maybe it’s as simple as I don’t want to pick up garbage anymore.
    Regardless, I kiss her. My hands are inside her shirt, her right nipple hard under my thumb.
    â€œNot here,” she whispers.
    â€œâ€˜Here,’ ‘there,’ it’s all arbitrary anyway.”
    In a world without objective meaning, in a world of cosmic emptiness, a lab table is as good as a bed.
    But Alice doesn’t understand.
    â€œNot here,” she insists, and breaks away from me.
    With a sigh, I return to picking up trash.

    ----
    Understanding Tertiary Care
    SERVICES
    â€¢      Memory and Physical Frailty Aid      •
    â€¢      Bathing and Grooming Aid      •
    â€¢      Incontinence Support      •
    â€¢      Medication Administration      •
    â€¢      Recreational Hour      •
    â€¢      Emotional and Spiritual Counseling      •
    â€¢      24/7 Nurse-on-call      •
    RESIDENCES
    â€¢      Spacious rooms      •
    â€¢      Large, bright windows      •
    DINING
    â€¢      Three Chef-prepared Meals Daily      •
    â€¢      Personal Meal Delivery      •

    ----

    Each lakeside apartment houses three to five students. Apartment 112 belongs to me, Marty, and Alice. I wanted Zach to be our fourth, to apply with us at the end of spring semester, when all the new students ditch their obligatory newsie-year doubles and triples for suites, singles, and Lakeside Apartments. But Zach already had a single and anyway, it’s hard to arrange living with someone if you never bring it up to him.
    The mere thought makes me panicky.
    In Alice’s room, I press my lip to hers. The lake outside glistens in the bright of the afternoon, and my head is full of Zach. Alice breathes into my shoulder, the smell of garbage hanging onto us, faint but discernible, and there before me is the blue of Zach’s eyes, the warmth of his hand on my shoulder. Afterward, lying naked in bed together, I watch her doze. My pants are on the floor by the bed.
    I reach into a pocket and draw out the key.
    How many times did Zach hold it?
    I lean back onto the bed.
    A quick glance at Alice assures me she’s asleep, so I bring the key to my lips, pop it into my mouth, and taste the metal, and after a moment, something more, the faint imprint of his touch.
    She wakes with her head on my chest. When she speaks into me it tickles. After two