I’m edging down the roof like usual when I catch myself on a nail that wasn’t there before. I tear the skin of my thigh on it and I feel my blood soaking into my jeans. When I hit the ground, my cell phone rings. Milo. I forgot to set it to vibrate. The ringtone is obscenely loud against all the nighttime around me and the only way I can think to make it stop is to answer him, so I do.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“I thought you’d be asleep.” He sounds surprised. “It’s late.”

“No. What’s going on?”

I tiptoe around the house to get my bike, trying to be as quiet as possible. The reception crackles a little. I hope he doesn’t know I’m outside, that he can somehow figure this out.

“Nothing … That truck thing today was pretty fucked up.”

“I know.” I walk my bike to the street slowly. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine—I mean, it’s not fine. I mean, that’s not why I called.”

“Why did you call?”

And then I get this crazy thought that he is finally going to tell me about that night because the silence on the other end of the line is so heavy, so important.

This has to be it.

“I don’t know,” he says. Or maybe not. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I lie. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

Silence. And then he fakes a yawn and says, “Look, I should call it a night but I’ll see you tomorrow or something, okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

He hangs up.

I leave.