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“Then can I come up?” he whispered back.

“How?” said Retta. “Do you have a ladder?”

The next instant he was climbing her mother’s rose trellis, hand over hand, the tips of his shoes seeking purchase. In a minute he was three feet beneath her window. “Can you give me a lift?” he said, reaching with one hand, holding on to the trellis with the other.

“Are you serious?” said Retta. “I can’t lift you.”

“I’m lighter than I look.”

She sighed, leaned out, stretched.

He was telling the truth. He was light, so light, in fact, that she pulled him over her windowsill not quite like a rag doll, but not far from it. It made Retta want to diet. “What are you?” she said. “On a hunger strike or something?”

“No,” he said. “I’m empty.”

They sat down on her floor, and Trevor folded his legs beneath him like an Indian guru. “So what are you doing here?” asked Retta, trying to keep things business formal.

“I missed you,” he said.

She said, “You don’t even know me.”

“Sure I do,” he said. “I know you better than you think, remember?” He tapped his temple like he did the day he’d given her a ride.

“So you read minds?”

“A little,” he said. “Enough to know you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the past week.”

“Everyone’s been wondering where you and your friends disappeared to for the past week,” said Retta. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“But you’ve been wondering more than everyone else,” he said. Retta made a face that said, You are so stupid.

“You have,” he said. “Admit it.”

“Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe.”

“Loretta,” he said. “Loretta, Loretta, Loretta,” he said, like her name was something musical.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about your name. Do you have a nickname?”

“No,” she said.

“Doesn’t anyone call you Lo?”

She shook her head.

“Then that’s what I’ll call you. Lo.”

“Loretta is fine.”

“But Lo is much better,” he said. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The sadness in Lo. The anguish.”

“I don’t feel it,” said Retta. “No.”

“Because you don’t like feeling,” he said. He stood and went to her mirror, primping his fauxhawk, which wasn’t really out of place. “You don’t like feeling because it hurts too much,” he said. “You numb yourself to feelings. But you feel more than you ever let yourself know.”

“Okay, Trevor,” said Retta. “What am I feeling right now?”

“You feel like you’re going to tear this town down. You feel like you’re waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell you what you want. You feel all that and more. You feel a lot, Lo,” he said. “You feel so much.”

Retta looked down at the carpet and didn’t say anything. He left the mirror and came over to her, his red Chuck Taylors inching into her vision. She looked up, blinked, unsure whether to be angry or relieved that he’d said all that. That he’d known.

“I can help,” he said. “We can help each other.”

“How?”

“I can take some from you, if you let me.”

“Take what?”

“Some feelings.”

“You know,” said Retta, “I’ve been very tolerant and accommodating about your condition, but at this point I think I should probably say that I never quite believed you and your friends. Nor the old woman on CNN this past week, nor the librarian, nor the blind musician downtown.”

He sat down across from her again and said, “Let me show you.”

“Really, Trevor,” said Retta, ready to protest, but her next words surprised even her: “Okay, sure. Show me.”

He reached over and grabbed her hands from her lap, his fingertips brushing against her palms, tickling. Then he closed his eyes, and Retta felt something move inside her, displacing her organs, shifting around. She shivered. Then it was in her chest. She tried to say, “Maybe this isn’t something I want to do after all,” but she couldn’t. By then it was in her throat. She gulped, trying to swallow down whatever it was. Then she opened her mouth and began huffing and puffing. Tears formed, trembled, rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t take her hands away from him either, even though Trevor barely