I took a long walk home. I needed time to decompress before dealing with Dad. I looped around my block twice before finally walking up the steps to the hotel. This wasn't going to be fun. I was going to have to lie, and lie a lot. I couldn't let Mom or Dad suspect that I knew anything. I wasn't sure what they'd do to me. I wasn't sure of much anymore. Sometimes, I thought that I might have just been going insane. It did sound crazy, when I tried to examine it objectively. Right about the time my twin dies, or supposedly dies, I start believing that Mom and Dad were in on a vast conspiracy to spirit away Zack in the middle of the night, convince all the doctors he had died, and that it was all because Zack had developed some sort of supernatural powers? I grinned to no one in particular. This was certainly unbelievable. And maybe I was just losing it? That first night, I was positive what I had heard. But it had been six months since then, and the certainty I had was beginning to dwindle. The memory was fading, becoming more distant. It was no longer the clear image in my mind that it had been. I caught myself second-guessing the recollection, trying hard to remember exact wordings, facial expressions, and movements.

"I can't be losing it. Why else would Dad have avoided the funeral if it wasn't because he didn't care?" No one could hear me, as I had stopped at the hotel door. The doorman was busy hailing a cab for another family. I shook my head and answered my own question. "Because it was too painful to experience that? Dad's not exactly the picture-perfect parent." I brought my hands up to my head and held it. Recently, my head had started to hurt slightly. I didn't think much of it – I wasn't eating, and I wasn't sleeping.

"But you're not crazy. You know what you saw." I nodded, ignoring the inherent irony that I was convincing myself I wasn't crazy by talking to myself. So new avenue of thinking. Maybe Dad really did care about me? I just couldn't accept that the last twelve years of my life had been a lie. Baseball games, road trips, late night movies, and bedtime stories all carefully crafted? If he was pretending to love me, wasn't that as good as being loved? He might just be my dad a few times a year, but, to me, he was still Dad. And despite everything, I loved him.

Gathering up my resolve, I made the journey up the stairs, into the hotel, and up to my suite. Opening the door, I dropped my backpack to the floor and noticed right away that Mom and Dad were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. My entrance had halted any conversation. Dad stood up and smiled widely. Mom stayed in her chair but turned to face me.

"Hey, kiddo," Dad started, "how was your day?" I shrugged and didn't respond. I walked over to the cabinet to get a glass and filled it with water. Looking at him, I realized that, though I did have a deep love for him, he also infuriated me. He took away Zack. My friend. My brother. My twin. No amount of fatherly love could make up for that. I still needed to deny anything I knew, or thought I knew, but making this easy on him wasn't something I had in mind. "Well, how've you been? It's been a while."

I wanted to say "Not long enough," but instead I just said "Yeah." He frowned as he stared at me.

"You don't look so good. Are you sleeping enough?" Breathing deeply, I tried to shut off my emotions. If I let myself, I knew that I was going to be unable to maintain this sort of blind rage at Dad. I'd fall into my old trap of caring too much. I'm too sympathetic. Too sensitive. What I needed right now was teenage-parental conflict. If I let myself love him again, I'd end up spilling it all.

"What do you care?"

"I'm your father. Of course I care."

"Like you cared about Zack?" The conversation froze. Mom bit down on her bottom lip and Dad looked away, as if that was a painful blow. After a few seconds of what I could only guess was supposed to be feeling sorry for himself, Dad looked back at me.

"Look, why don't you and I go get something to eat so we can talk? I owe you that much."

"No thanks." He looked angry, and he raised his voice, a tactic he had never used before.

"That wasn't a request. Now come on." Mom stared on sadly as Dad walked over towards me and forcefully pushed me towards the door. I shook his arm off and walked.

***

Sitting across from him at a pizza place downtown, I stared straight up and into his eyes, as if for the first time, while we waited on our food to arrive. Dad tried to smile again, but my face didn't change from the stone-hard glare I was giving him. I figured I'd be expected to be angry, and this let me get off some real resentment too. Or I was just going insane. So no matter what, I was covered; crazy people shouldn't be expected to have rational responses.

"Look, I know you're angry with me."

"I'm not angry." Dad rolled his eyes at that.

"Upset? Peeved? Annoyed? Cody, I'm trying here. I'm really trying to make it up to you. But you've got to help me out a little bit." I shrugged to that but decided that I'd at least hear what he had to say. He threw up his hands. "What is it that you want?"

I didn't really know what to say to that. What did I want? The truth, obviously, but that wasn't something I could very easily ask for. I dropped my head into my hands. There was so much confusion still. He was waiting expectantly. I had to give him something. "Why didn't you come to the funeral?"

He breathed in deeply. It was what he expected. "Cody, I love you, and I loved your brother. I still do. But, you've got to understand, I'm not perfect." He gave a fake laugh. "Not even close. Maybe if I was, things would be better, and I hope to God I can make it that way for you. When I found out about Zack, though, I panicked. I should've been here." Cue sudden emotional response. His eyes filled with tears and he aimlessly played with his fingers. "I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. The idea of seeing Zack like that. Seeing him get lowered into the ground." Time for anger to make it believable. He pounded a fist on the table. The other patrons looked over. "Cody, no father should ever have to bury his son. I wanted to be here for you and Mom." He shook his head, hopelessly defeated. All in all, a compelling act. "It was too much for me. I wish I were a better man, a better father. I want to make things right now though. Before it's too late."

I didn't know what to say. On the surface, it was a believable story. I had already come to similar conclusions; Dad wasn't exactly known as being reliable or mature about things. He hadn't ever grown up. I couldn't challenge the merits of what he had to say. But I couldn't be bought in either. What did he call it? Being compromised? Well, if I was compromised, and gave him a tearful hug and told him I was sorry, I'd end up telling him everything. In the back of my mind, I knew that this was the worst thing I could do. Gathering back the image of Zack in the hospital bed, I used it to fuel my rage. This was the man responsible for my brother's pain. This was the man responsible for taking him away from me.

"So what now? You take me out for pizza and everything's supposed to be better? It makes up for what you did. Or didn't do? We needed you. I," I shook my head. The tears in my eyes were real. "What do you want?" I asked his question back at him, emphasizing the "you".

"I just want you to know that I love you, and I'll always be here if you need me." Food arrived. We stopped talking. He ate. I began cutting the pizza with a knife, playing with the food and dragging it through marinara sauce. My appetite had long since left me. "Are you going to eat that or play with it?"

"What's it matter?"

"You don't look well. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Cody, come on, talk to me. How's your head feel? Been getting headaches lately?" I dropped my fork. So that's what this was about. He wanted to find out if I was going to "manifest," whatever that meant. He wanted to know if I was like Zack. I should have known he hadn't come because of some sort of deep-seeded fatherly affection. I hated him so much. Staring back at him, I got up from the table.

"I hate you, and I don't ever want to see you again." While he was still stunned from my outburst, I quickly headed out of the restaurant and ran.

***

It didn't take five minutes for me to begin second-guessing myself again. How sure could I be that his question about headaches was anything out of the ordinary? Was I, once more, reading too much into my brother's death? Mr. Burns said that it was common to look for a bigger meaning behind events. Maybe, I thought, my brother's disappearance really was just a death. Maybe I had invented that conversation as a coping mechanism. That was ridiculous, of course, but it's what people would say. Thunder clapped overhead.

"Great, just what I need to finish off a perfect day. Rain." I was a good half-hour walk away from the hotel. Jamming my hands into my pocket, I tried to ignore the pounding in my cranium and the light sprinkle that was the precursor to what was obviously going to be torrential downpour. The pain was mounting, my exhaustion was growing, and, truthfully, I was scared of storms.

Dropping myself down on the steps of an apartment building, I buried my head in my hands, trying to block out all external stimuli that were magnified a thousand fold because of my headache while the rain began to let loose. In seconds, I was drenched to my bones. Clothing was sopping wet. Socks were uncomfortably saturated. Underwear started to chafe with the wetness. I could hardly hear the yell over the storm.

"Kid, hey kid! Do you need a ride?" I looked up. Pulled over on a curb was a white station wagon. Inside was a young woman and a boy about my age. The boy had streaks of brown peaking through his obviously dyed blond hair. The girl had naturally straight brown hair that sat at roughly shoulder level. She yelled again. "Come on, get in." She motioned for me to come.

I jumped up and ran towards the car. Normally, I wouldn't get in a car with strangers, but normally I wasn't weighing abduction with catching pneumonia. Besides, I had just as good a chance of getting abducted at home. I opened the door and hopped into the back seat, clothing slushing uncomfortably as I sat down, dampening the seat. "Sorry, and thanks for this."

"Don't worry about it. My name's Sarah, by the way, and this is my little brother, Evan," she ruffled his hair, causing him to twist out of her reach before she gave him a one armed hug. Turning around, he stared at me.

"I'm Cody. And sorry about your seat."

"I said not to worry about it. This has seen worse." Glancing over into a rear-view mirror, she pulled back out on to the street. "So where do you live?"

"Huh?" I was confused. Why did they want to know where I live. The boy, Evan, giggled.

"She wants to know where you live so she can take you home." He rolled his eyes. Oh. I guess it was kind of obvious. He laughed as my face turned to one of understanding. Sarah reached over and playfully pushed Evan back to a sitting position.

"Be nice. But," she turned back towards me, "seriously, where do you live? I can't let you out anywhere else. It's way too dangerous out there right now."

"Uh, the Tipton Hotel." I shivered. She turned the heater on.

"Fancy that. Just where we were going."

Evan turned back around to look at me. "So what were you doing out there in the middle of the rainstorm?"

"It wasn't raining when I got out there."

"Yeah, but you were just sitting." I shrugged. "What, do you normally just sit down in the street when it's storming?"

"I got in a fight. I was walking home and wanted to take a second to breathe."

"A fight with who?" At this, Sarah glared down at her brother.

"Evan!"

"What, I was just asking? Sheesh." He looked back at me. "So what grade are you in?"

"Seventh."

He smiled. "Hey, me too. Sarah and I just moved to Boston. We're staying at the hotel till we can find somewhere to live."

"Evan, I think you've asked enough questions. Sit and settle, kid." Once again, he rolled his eyes and sat back down in the seat facing frontways. He quickly turned up the heat and smiled contently. Even as wet and cold as I was, this was a little hot for me.

Soon, we were parked outside of the Tipton and staring at its front door through the wet onslaught.

"I guess we have to run," Evan said, voicing my thoughts. "Fun." Not so much voicing my thoughts.

"Alright, on three." Sarah began counting. "One, three." Quickly, she pushed her door open and ran. Shrugging, Evan followed her, and I quickly followed suit, feet pounding against the wet pavement as I got a fresh coat of rain to saturate my clothing. Pushing open the door, we sighed in relief. Neither of them were nearly as wet as I was, but they still both looked like they had just walked half a mile in the rain.

"Well, I need to get upstairs. Thanks for the ride." Sarah smiled and welcomed me as I walked off.

"See ya 'round!" Evan cried.

***

I quietly turned the nob of the door and peeked inside. Mom was sitting on the couch in her pajamas, a cup of coffee in one hand and the television turned to the weather channel. As the door opened, her head rapidly spun in my direction.

"Cody, where on Earth have you been? It's pouring! Your Dad called and said you ran away. Oh my Lord, you're soaked! Get in here." I hurried inside and closed the door. Mom walked over to me, furious. "What were you thinking? Why would you run away like that? And in the middle of a storm? I've been scared to death, thinking about what could have happened!"

"It wasn't raining when I left."

"What did you run away for?"

I turned my head away from her. I still had mixed feelings with Mom. On the one hand, she at the very least knew things she wasn't telling me. On the other, I did love her, even more than my mixed-love with Dad. And she said she loved me. "I just...I was angry."

"Angry? You're father's been driving all over the city looking for you!"

"Look, I said I was sorry! I just didn't want to be around him anymore. I hate him."

"He's your father."

"I don't care, I fucking hate him."

"Don't you ever use language like that again."

"I'll say whatever the hell I want!" I felt the hot sting of five fingers slap themselves across my cheek. I stared up at Mom with blood boiling, stammering to keep in control. She held her hand, as if incapable of comprehending what she had just done.

"Cody, I 'm sorry," she started. I turn and ran towards my room, jumping on to my bed. "Cody," I could hear her as she approached. Glaring, the door slammed itself shut and I could hear the lock push into place. The weird thing, though, is that I never got up off my bed to shut it.