Missing by Francine Pascal Page B

after The Village School worked him over during the days . . . Jesus. That was enough to wreak serious havoc on his body and his mind—not counting the addition of the lies that would be required to convince everyone that he wasn’t making any progress.
    He shook his head, shivering as he rolled along the sidewalk. The weird thing was, the more momentum he picked up, the less tired he felt. It was as if his exhaustion had carried into some weird state beyond exhaustion. His bones ached; he could barely think; but for some reason, he was wide awake. He didn’t know what he was feeling: It was something he couldn’t put his finger on. It was a kind of . . . well, a sort of gross sensation in the pit of his stomach, coupled with an annoying pressure on his temples.
    Sleep,
he said to himself. Right. He just needed to get home and get some sleep.
    Only . . .
    Ed began to notice that he wasn’t actually going in the direction of his home. As if acting of their own free will, his hands seemed to have wheeled him on a detour farther into the West Village. And with his mind racing, he hadn’t quite noticed that he’d made a turn off Charles Street onto Perry Street. Next thing he knew, he was just a few doors down from Gaia’s house.
    Maybe she was home.
    The windows were dark, but that meant nothing.
    She might still be there.
    He rolled to a stop in front of the wheelchair-friendly entrance—one of the few in the city, at least as far as brownstones were concerned. Not that he would be needing it anymore. Not after the settlement . . .
    Why hadn’t she called him when he’d been out of school so long? Were things still awkward between them? He could just ring her doorbell right now and get all this bullshit out in the open. There was noreason for things to be strained between them just because Ed was seeing Heather again. So what if Gaia and Heather despised each other with a passion? Those two really needed to just throw on some gloves and go a few rounds in the ring. Settle their differences—
    What am I saying? That would be like Jean-Claude Van Damme against some little . . . I don’t know, like that little mini–Backstreet Boy Aaron Carter kid. Although actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing that kid get a little Van Dammed . . .
    He stared at the door. He could just go up for a few minutes. Tell her about—
    Ed stopped himself midthought. Of course he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell her about his surgery. He couldn’t tell
anyone
about it. Without really thinking, he rolled up the ramp. He looked through the front door window, but it was pitch black. All he could see was the circle of frost from his own breath on the glass of the door. He pulled back a foot and looked up at Gaia’s floor. Pitch black. From here, so close, the entire town house looked . . . dead. Vacant. Not just like no one was living there. Like no one ever
had
lived there.
    Ed took a long, deep breath and blew it out as he slumped down in his chair. He moved his face an inch from the glass one more time to peer inside, for no good reason. There was nothing to see but anothercircle of icy white formed by his breath. Finally Ed raised his finger and wrote a four-letter word in the frost.
    Gaia.
    He only wanted to talk to her for a few minutes. He
needed
to talk to her. It had been too long. And that’s when he realized what the feeling was that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
    He was depressed.
    Â 
ED
    So. I told Heather my news at the restaurant, and her reaction was
perfect
. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. She was thrilled. She was just as ecstatic as I was. It was like she could see the whole future for us that I’d been seeing. The one with all those possibilities.
    But I don’t know how long it was, three minutes? Four minutes later? And we were talking about
money
. It was just . . . weird.
    Money is weird. I mean, who really cares about money?