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“You were awfully brave,” Claire said to me, “To save him.”
We were sitting in a large drain pipe that ran beneath a hill in the playground behind the school. We were laying on our backs, our feet braced high on the side of the pipe, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that her mother had packed for her. It was pleasant, being with Claire alone. Her numbers were long and I didn’t feel as though I had to be ready to rescue her, she felt less delicate, more real.
“It was nothing,” I answered.
She’d been yamming on and on about me saving her brother the week before, unable to stop telling me how brave I’d been. But, and I’d tried to explain this to her without revealing my secret, it wasn’t really bravery. After all, as they say, it’s not brave if you aren’t scared, and I wasn’t really scared that day. After all, I couldn’t have died, so there was nothing to be scared of, was there?
“It wasn’t nothing, Nick,” she whispered. Claire rolled to her side and sat up, the pipe barely large enough to keep her from bumping her head. “You saved his life.”
“It sounds better when you say it like that,” I said, shrugging.
She sighed. “Why won’t you take credit for it?”
“There’s nothing to take credit for.”
Claire leaned against the drain pipe, facing me this time instead of alongside me, and stared at me, considering me. “There’s something different about you,” she said, “Different from all the other boys in our school.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking. “Something. You seem…older, more mature, or something, maybe.”
“More mature?” I laughed. Only that afternoon I’d been given a warning from a teacher in lunch for making a potato catapult. “So I suppose the pink slip I’ve got in my bag for my ma is nothing?”
“Not nothing,” she answered, “But you were just having fun. I mean you are childish sometimes, but I feel like you know more.”
“I just barely pass my classes,” I reminded her.
Claire shook her head, “Not like that. Like…” she sighed. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say, I guess.” She hung her head, her chin touching her chest and studied her fingernails. “I’m probably just crazy.”
I sat up and reached for her hand. “You aren’t.”
She looked up into my eyes and I saw tears filling hers. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
Claire swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “My dad was,” she whispered.
“Was what?” I asked.
“Crazy,” she answered.
“Was he?” I asked, my mouth felt dry and hot.
Claire nodded. “They put him away. I’m not supposed to talk about it. My mom tells everyone that he’s dead, killed in the war, but that’s not so. He did fight, but he was crazy.” “I’m sorry,” I said. I touched her arm. It felt smooth. I swallowed hard. “It doesn’t mean you are, though, Claire.”
She looked into my eyes and nodded, “I know. I just can’t help but think sometimes that maybe I am a little bit. Like maybe I inherited something from him, and I can’t help it but be a little crazy. You know?”
“You aren’t,” I answered.
“I just…part of me doesn’t even want to listen to fairy tales or to see the cinemas because I don’t like being lost in make-believe,” she said, “Then sometimes I wonder if my dad was as crazy as they all made him out to be. Like maybe there is no such thing as make believe, but only truth, and levels of truth, and maybe anything is possible, even things that most people think are impossible, you know?” “Yes,” I whispered. My palms felt sweaty.
“Do you believe impossible things?” she asked.
“Everyday,” I told her.
Claire smiled, “So it’s normal?” she asked, “To want to believe impossible things?”
“Of course,” I said.
She shifted in the pipe and leaned against the wall beside me. “Do you believe in love, Nick?” she asked.
My throat felt swollen. “Sometimes,” I answered.
She kissed my cheek. Her lips felt hot and soft on my face. I closed my eyes as she pressed them on my skin. She held them there a long moment, then leaned away, her breath coming out in short, nervous puffs. “I do,” she said.
I looked at her and gave her a shy smile. “I could easily be convinced.”