Or something . . . something close enough.
Aunt Adah said, “Kids? Candle lighting in ten—get up here. I’m pulling challah out of the oven and your father is threatening to say hamotzi for every one of you and eat it all.”
And of course.
Of course I stayed.
All that happened that night was we stayed up too late and played Truth or Dare.
And we all fell asleep in the den, and Aunt Adah woke me and Jolie and made us go to Jolie’s room, because propriety.
And well. Dad found out that Jonah had stayed over.
I don’t think I spent the night at my cousins’ house again until I was sixteen.
At the time, I’d thought it was my fault.
I’d kind of blamed Jonah a little, too.
Now we’re walking together, though, and I know . . . it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Jonah. It was my dad looking for an excuse to hate his brother.
A hundred miles away and years later, silent in the woods, it’s still affecting us.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“SO. ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS,” he says.
“Hmmm?”
“What else?”
I cock my head at him, mouth tipping up.
“Smoke.”
He raises his eyebrow. “You shitting me? Don’t you want to be a firefighter?”
“Cigarette smoke,” I said. “But look at you, paying attention.”
He shrugs. “Chick firefighter. It’s kinda hot.”
I groan, but I like it.
“That’s sexist probably.”
He says, “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“What else have you learned about me?”
He turns that knife of a smile on me and says, “You fishing, Jacob?”
“I’m trying to make conversation.”
“Mmhmm. Well. You’re into dance, right? Like . . . something nerdy, I think. Ballroom?”
I blush. “Watching it, not doing it.”
“That’s even nerdier. And I know you’ve got a huge thing for Gene Wilder, you freak.”
I laugh and shove his arm. “I don’t have a thing for Gene Wilder.”
“Yeah, you do.”
He’s right. I do.
I don’t say anything and his face goes all smug, like he’s not totally freezing and tired.
He says, “Okay, do me now.”
I say, “Jonah, that’s so forward.”
“Christ.” He laughs. Jagged edges and arrogance.
“You’re an anthropology major.”
“Easy.”
“You love football.” He gives me this unimpressed look and follows it up with a dismissive jack-off motion.
“Oh my god,” I say. He takes a small swallow of his water and I say, “The steel guitar. You would die for the steel guitar.”
He chokes. “Who told you that?”
“No one told me.”
“Bullshit.”
“Every time Uncle Reuben puts on bluegrass and the cousins make him turn it off, your eyes turn to little hearts. You’re, like, romantically attracted to the steel guitar.”
“I’m not romantically attracted to anyone, Jacob.”
“Except the steel guitar.”
“Christ, never tell anyone.”
“Scout’s honor,” I say.
“You’re not a scout.”
“But I’m honorable.”
It can’t be intentional when he bumps my shoulder and says, “Bet you’re not that honorable.”
I scrape my teeth over my lip, but he’s not looking at me anymore; he’s moving ahead, into the wild.
Every foot we descend, it’s like I can feel the air seeping back into my lungs, so I don’t complain.
Even though the air’s still thin and my legs hurt and I’m exhausted.
“You are, though.”
He laughs. “Honorable?”
“A scout.”
He spins around to face me, takes two steps backward to pop me the nerdy-ass Boy Scout salute, and completes the rotation so he’s facing forward again.
“How the hell does that work?” I say.
“What? Scouting?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Just . . . someone like you. In the Boy Scouts.”
He looks over his shoulder at me and slows a tic so I can catch up. He clutches his hand to his chest. “Jacob, that hurts. What are you skeptical of? My reluctance to wear a uniform or my ability to tie knots?”
I swallow hard. “Uniform. And like. G-d and country and all of that.”
He says, “Well thank fuck. I can tie knots like a pro. And I don’t know, fuck patriotism, but I like being around everyone. I like being in the woods.”
“Mm,” I say.
“Hate that uniform, though.”
I grin.
“You think I don’t believe in G-d?”
“No,” I say. “I didn’t say that. Scouts just seems like a lot.”
“I believe in G-d.”
“Yeah?”
“Not like glory hallelujah and stuff, I guess. But. Yeah.”
“Tell me.”
“What I believe about G-d?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“You interested in that, really?”
I furrow my brow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He chews on it for a second, micro-expressions moving over his face in the most fascinating way. “Just—huh, I don’t know. Girls don’t usually get me alone and ask me about theology.”
“Mm, a little occupied, typically?”
He smirks. “Something like that.”
“Well,” I say, “we’re not. We’ve got a whole lot of mountain and even more silence.”
He runs his tongue over his teeth. “I don’t want to, like, offend you or whatever.”
“Offend me?”
He purses his lips and shoves his hands down deep in his pocket. “You’re religious and shit. I don’t want to piss you off.”
I bark out a laugh. “I’m sorry, I think you’re confusing me with a Not A Jew.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“It’s not like you have to believe in G-d to be a Jew.”
He furrows his brow. “What?”
“A Jew is a Jew, dude. I could be an atheist or a theist or keep kosher or eat nothing at all but pork and bacon every day, and when I died of scurvy, I’d die a Jew. I can do tzedakah all day every day and then light candles on Shabbos and still decide I wanna play video games, and I’m still a freaking Jew. An observant one. Or a non-observant one. Whatever.”
“That’s . . .” He scratches the back of his head. “Huh.”
“You never talked to Jaxon about this? Oh, sorry—Jax.”
He grins and flips me off, then says, “Nah. We don’t talk about religion a whole lot. I know he cares about it. But that’s about as far as we get.”
“Well,” I say, shuddering against a quick, cold breeze, “trust me; whatever you have to say, I’ve probably heard it and eighty other opinions from a million rabbis and whatever you think just . . . could not possibly offend me. Not the way it works.”
“Oh.” He takes a minute to squint up at the sky and just generally be awkward. Then he says, “I uh, I don’t know. I guess I think G-d was probably there once. And now He’s—She’s? They’re—G-d was probably there once and now probably G-d’s got other shit to do.”