“Kurt,” Tina says, cracking her door, her face opening up into a smile. It’s a great smile, I think, wishing I didn’t need her for anything but the smile. I’m about to speak when the passenger door opens and her friend Indira steps out. The little car’s got an oversize stereo and a woman’s voice mewing from the speakers about lost kisses while a piano plunks low keys. Why’d Tina bring a friend? A flame of rage licks across me. I grab Tina by the elbow and roughly pull her out of the car. I don’t mean to, but can’t help it.

“What the ... ?” Tina starts to speak, confused.

“Tina?” Indira asks meekly.

Shit! Shit! Shit! “Kuh-kuh-come alone!” I say, glancing over the roof of the car at Indira.

“Jesus! If you want to ask me out on a date,” Tina snaps, “McDonald’s won’t do and you’ll have to ease up on the groping. Also, you’ll have to—”

“I nuh-nuh-nuh-need . . .” I cut her off. “. . . yuh-yuh-yuh-your help.” Those four words are hard as hell to string together and it’s got nothing to do with the stutter. The way I grew up, you don’t ask people for nothing. All it does is let them know you’re soft. Weak. If they know you’re soft, they don’t help. They attack. But this time, I got no other option. There’s no other way.

“Yeah, right!” Tina rolls her eyes. “You want me to help you. Is this a joke? Am I being punk’d right now?”

“I nuh-nuh-nuh-need . . .” And all that has happened that afternoon and the memories it brings back up in me and the bad future it threatens me with—all that wells up inside me until Tina and the world beyond her melt. Lamar’s nowhere to be found and this thing is coming whether I want it to or not. “Yuh-yuh-yuh-your . . .” I try. I really try to hold it back but it won’t be held back no more. It claws its way out of a crack in my heart and this ... this ... thing blasts up out of me, part moan and part sob. It embarrasses the hell out of me, laughs at me and my muscles, tells me they won’t ever, ever make up for what I let happen to Lamar. Stutter or not, no words can explain how awful and scared I feel. All I can do is turn away and thump the roof of that stupid car.

And then Tina’s arms wrap around my waist, hugging me, holding me even though she is small and I am big. Another sob crashes out of me and I almost pound her car again in frustration. I hold back. I let my heavy arms settle around Tina, pulling her tight into me like she’s the last life vest in the angriest ocean. I bury my face in her jet-black hair with the blond roots and cry like the big baby Scott claims I am, cry like I haven’t done since Lamar left me behind in this world.