I loved you.”“You what?”“I-I spoke too quickly, Jay. I’m sorry. I mean, I liked you. I did. Really.”“Liked. As in past tense.”“No. I... like you. I like you now.”“No, you don’t. You’re mad at me. You shouldn’t like me at all.”“Why not?”“I do bad things. I screw around, okay? I can’t help it. I’m no good for you, Sue. You deserve someone better. Someone taller.”“Don’t say that.”“It’s true. Isn’t it?”“No, it’s not.”“Yeah, sure.”He looked like he was going to cry. I was going to cry.“Jay? I love. Bobby thought it might be great to have all that autonomy, but he also knew that he wanted his family to grow where there were services, amenities, and other people. It needed to be people who didn’t know about their past, though, because that would dispense with the angst and judgment he knew Mindy was so sensitive to. He also didn’t want his children to grow up being looked at as different.So he gave his family and Mindy faulty information, telling them graduation was later than it actually. I said, "Four five, Audra flight ETA Mireille is noon. Over."Neon came back with, "Six, we agree. Maintaining current course speed Audra flight will be over Mireille runway at twelve hundred hours. Over."I was still standing in the door watching the blue water go by as Adrian put miles between us and the kidnappers on Ekwueme. I keyed my mike distractedly, "Four five, standby for further traffic, out."I grabbed the upper doorframe in both hands leaning out letting the wind buffet me while I. What I did first was drink five beers by myself in my dorm. I walked down to their house by myself singing something loudly. I wore my black tank top and khaki jeans. I flexed my arms as I walked and saw that, thankfully, two weeks of not going to the gym had not really decreased my muscles. I walked alone and sang and did not care about the occasional person giving me a funny look because I did not want to feel lonely. I was, after all, alone. Renee had decided to go to her friend’s film.