This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I’d met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn’t let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.

As Dante and I lay on our backs in the bed of my pickup and gazed out at the summer stars, I was free. Imagine that. Aristotle Mendoza, a free man. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I thought of that look on my mother’s face when I’d told her I was ashamed. I thought of that look of love and compassion that she wore as she looked at me. “Ashamed? Of loving Dante?”

I took Dante’s hand and held it.

How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?

“No,” he said.

“Kiss me.”

“No.” And then he smiled. “You kiss me.”

I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And he kept kissing me back.

We laughed and we talked and looked up at the stars.

“I wished it was raining,” he said.

“I don’t need the rain,” I said. “I need you.”

He traced his name on my back. I traced my name on his.

He pushed me away. “I don’t like it when you touch me.”

We stood there for long time. Neither one of us said anything. I felt small and insignificant and inadequate. I hated feeling that way. I was going to stop feeling that way. I was going to stop. “Dante?”

“What?” I could hear the anger in his voice.

“Don’t be mad.”

“I don’t know what to do, Ari.”

“Remember that time you kissed me?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember I said it didn’t work for me?”

“Why are you bringing this up? I remember. I remember. Dammit to hell, Ari, did you think I’d forgotten?”

“I’ve never seen you this mad.”

“I don’t want to talk about that, Ari. It just makes me feel bad.”

“What did I say when you kissed me?”

“You said it didn’t work for you.”

“I lied.”

He looked at me.

“Don’t play with me, Ari.”

“I’m not.”

Dante didn’t say anything.I touched the tennis shoes he’d sent me that were hanging from my rearview mirror. “I love these things,” I said.

“You love a lot of things, don’t you?’

“You sound mad. I thought you weren’t mad anymore.”

“I think I am mad.”

“I’m sorry. I said I was sorry.”

“I can’t do this, Ari,” he said.

“Can’t do what?”

“This whole friend thing. I can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“I have to explain it to you?”

I didn’t say anything.

He got out of the truck and slammed the door. I followed after him.

“Where are we going?”

“My favorite hangout.”

Dante was quiet. “It’s late.”

“You tired?’

“Sort of.”

“It’s just ten o’clock. Get up early, do you?”

“Wiseass.”

“Unless you want to just go home.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Dante didn’t put in any music. He thumbed through my box full of cassette tapes, but couldn’t settle on anything. I didn’t mind the quiet.

We just drove into the desert. Me and Dante. Not saying anything.

I parked in my usual spot.

“Because they love us? That’s not so weird.”

“It’s how they love us that’s weird.”

“Beautiful,” I said.

Dante looked at me. “You’re different.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re acting different.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, weird. But in a good way.”

“Good,” I said, “I’ve always wanted to be weird in a good way.”

“They’re not. They’re just people.”

“Yeah. You know, I think I’ve changed my mind about my mom and dad.”

“You mean you’re crazy about them.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I’ve been calling you every day for the past five days.”

“I have the flu.”

“Bad joke. Screw you, Ari.”

“Why are you so mad?”

“Why are you so mad?”

“I’m not mad anymore.”

“So maybe it’s my turn to be mad.”

“Okay, that’s fair. How’s Daniel?”

“You’re a piece of crap, Ari.”

“No. Daniel’s a piece of crap.”

“He doesn’t like you.”

“I don’t like him either. So, is he like your new best friend?”

“Not even close.”

“You guys been kissing?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just asking.”

“I don’t want to kiss him. He’s nothing.”

“So what happened?”

“He’s a self-involved, conceited, piece of shit. And he’s not even smart. And my mother doesn’t like him.”

“What does Sam think of him?”

“Dad doesn’t count. He likes everybody.”

That really made me laugh.

“Don’t laugh. Why were you mad?”

“We can talk about it,” I said.

“Yeah, like you’re so good at that.”

“Give me a break, Dante.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. So what are you doing tonight?”

“Our parents are going bowling.”

“They are?”

“They talk a lot.”

“They do?”

“Don’t you know anything?”

“I guess I’m a little aloof sometimes.”

“A little?”

“I’m trying here, Dante.”

“Say you’re sorry. I don’t like people who don’t know how to say they’re sorry.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” I could tell he was smiling. “They want us to go along.”

“Ashamed of what?” my mother said. “Of loving Dante?”

“I’m a guy. He’s a guy. It’s not the way things are supposed to be. Mom—”

“I know,” she said. “Ophelia taught me some things, you know? All those letters. I’ve learned some things. And your father’s right. You can’t run. Not from Dante.”

“I hate myself.”

“Don’t, amor. Te adoro. I’ve already lost a son. I’m not going to lose another. You’re not alone, Ari. I know it feels that way. But you’re not.”

“How can you love me so much?”

“How could I not love you? You’re the most beautiful boy in the world.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You are.”

“What am I going to do?”

My father’s voice was soft. “Dante didn’t run. I keep picturing him taking all those blows. But he didn’t run.”

“Okay,” I said. For once in my life, I understood my father perfectly.

And he understood me.

you dove across the street and shoved Dante out of the way of a moving car? You think that just happened? I think you couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. You just couldn’t. Why would you risk your own life to save Dante if you didn’t love him?”

“Because he’s my friend.”

“And why would you go and beat the holy crap out of a guy who hurt him? Why would you do that? All of your instincts, Ari, all of them, tell me something. You love that boy.”

I kept staring down at the table.

“I think you love him more than you can bear.”

“Dad? Dad, no. No. I can’t. I can’t. Why are you saying these things?”

“Because I can’t stand watching all that loneliness that lives inside you. Because I love you, Ari.” My mother and father watched me cry. I thought maybe I was going to cry forever. But I didn’t. When I stopped, I took a big drink from my beer. “Dad, I think I liked it better when you didn’t talk.”

My mother laughed. I loved her laugh. And then my father was laughing. And then I was laughing.

I looked at my dad. “From what?”

“Don’t you know?”

“What?”

“If you keep running, it will kill you.”

“What, Dad?”

“You and Dante.”

“Me and Dante?” I looked at my mother. Then looked at my father.

“Dante’s in love you,” he said. “That’s obvious enough. He doesn’t hide that from himself.”

“I can’t help what he feels, Dad.”

“No. No, you can’t.”

“And besides, Dad, I think he’s gotten way over that.

He’s into that guy, Daniel.”

My father nodded. “Ari, the problem isn’t just that Dante’s in love with you. The real problem—for you, anyway—is that you’re in love with him.”

I didn’t say anything. I just kept looking at my mother’s face. And then my father’s face.

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m not sure, I mean, I don’t think that’s true. I mean, I just don’t think so. I mean—”

“Maybe I do. Maybe it’s time to stop the dreams.” He leaned on my mother. “Don’t you think it’s time, Lilly?”

My mother didn’t say a word.

My father smiled at me. “A few minutes ago your mother walked into the living room and took the book I was reading out of my hands. And she said: ‘Talk to him. Talk to him, Jaime.’ She put on that fascist voice of hers she has.”

My mother laughed softly.

“I don’t know if I believed in the war or not, Ari. I don’t think I did. I think about it a lot. But I signed up. And I don’t know what I felt about this country. I do know that the only country I had were the men that fought side by side. They were my country, Ari. Them. Louie and Beckett and Garcia and Al and Gio—they were my country. I’m not proud of everything I did in that war. I wasn’t always a good soldier. I wasn’t always a good man. War did something to us. To me. To all of us. But the men we left behind. Those are the ones who are in my dreams.”

I drank my beer. My father drank from his. My mother drank from her glass of wine. We were all silent for what seemed a long time.

“I hear him sometimes,” my father said. “Louie. I hear him calling my name. I didn’t go back.”

“You would’ve been killed too,” I whispered.

“Maybe. But I didn’t do my job.”

“I love the desert. God, I love the desert.”

“It’s so lonely.”

“Is it?”

Dante didn’t understand. I was unknowable.

Legs lay there with me. Watching. What do you see, Legs? What do you see? Where did you live before you came to me? Did someone hurt you, too?

Another summer was ending.

What would happen to me after I graduated? College? More learning. Maybe I would move to another city, to another place. Maybe summers would be different in another place.

Had I been hurt?

Had I healed?

Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing. Like my father. I think that’s where he lived. In that in-between space. In that ecotone. My mother, too, maybe. She’d locked my brother somewhere deep inside of her. And now she was trying to let him out.