So now there’s only one apology left to make.

It takes some convincing, but I do it. I get Eric to back off and let me head over to Thomas’s house by myself.

Once Thomas knows about my condition there’s no way he’ll let me wander the streets alone. I just don’t want to rush my time with him.

Now I’m slowly climbing up the fire escape. I’m getting used to these jump-cuts in my life. I don’t scramble up the steps with the thrill I had all summer, but with the fear of someone marching to his death. When I reach his window, the curtains are drawn. But I can still see a sliver of Thomas leaning over his table and writing. I bet he’s journaling.

I knock on the pane and he jumps.

And then, like Genevieve, he blinks a few times, fast. His eyes fill with tears. I shake my head.

“Meet me on the roof,” I tell him.

He nods.

I head on up and just wait, reminding myself again and again what I’m doing and why I’m here. I check out the streetlamps turning on below, glowing orange as evening kicks in, and then up at the few stars hanging out in the sky. I see him step off the fire escape, and all of a sudden he’s sitting on the ledge.

I’m trembling a little bit. This is another forever moment. “So something crazy is happening,” I tell him. I lie down on the ground. The stars don’t shift, and I’m very appreciative. “There’s been a trauma in the part of my brain where you store your memories. It’s only partial right now, but my doctor thinks there’s a chance it’ll take full effect at some point or another. If I don’t remember something you say, I’m sorry.”

Thomas is now down beside me. For a while we don’t say anything else. Or maybe we have an entire conversation I don’t remember.

What I have is this:

He asks, “Do you think there’s a chance you were someone really awful in a past life? Like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away you were Darth Vader? I feel like you can’t catch a break.”

I laugh and quickly repeat it in my head several times.

“Sure feels that way,” I say. “I honestly don’t want to live anymore, Thomas. I think it could be freeing to just get up and fly off this rooftop . . .”

“If you love me, Stretch, you won’t leave me with the memory of you jumping off this roof now, or ever. Okay? If there’s one thing I’m begging you to remember from this conversation, it’s that promise.”

“Okay, but in exchange you have to promise to never die. I can’t stand the pain of someone telling me every day that you’re dead. You need to always be alive and happy, okay?”

He laughs through his tears. “You got it, Stretch. Immortality. No problem.”

“And happy too,” I say.

He props his knees up and cracks his knuckles. “Okay. I need to come clean about something. I suspected you liked me after you came out with Side A. You understand me in a way a lot of other people don’t. If I’m being one hundred percent honest, I think our friendship even confused me a little, but I’m also one hundred percent sure that I’m still straight because I would’ve been chasing after you if I wasn’t.”

I try to say something, but I can’t.

“We can’t ever be together,” he finished. “But I always want to know you, even if we’re in the same room and you’re just saying hi to me over and over again, I’ll be perfectly happy. I’ll always want to be sitting across from you.”

So now in this moment I have this fantasy: Thomas is straight—which I now believe is either very real or who he needs to be right now—but he goes to Leteo and convinces them to give him a procedure so he can forget he’s straight. Once he’s gay, he finds me just like he said he would and we build a life of happy memories together.

But like with everyone else, I know better. I can picture Thomas and Genevieve making each other happy. Genevieve will glow whenever he leans in to her to whisper a joke that isn’t my business. He’ll sweep her off her feet, as if they’re newlyweds, and carry her into a world I can never share with either of them.

“What would Thomas Reyes do if he were in my situation?” I ask.

Thomas sits up. “I would do my damn best to be more happy than not. You’ve already experienced so much bullshit so you can always look back on how things could be worse. That’s my two cents.”

I may never get to see the person Thomas grows up to be. If he becomes a director or wrestler or deejay or set designer or gay or straight, I may be too lost in the past for it ever to click.

“I don’t want to forget, Thomas.”

“I don’t want you to either. Just remember that I love the hell out of you, okay?”

I repeat it over and over because there are so many memories crowding my head that don’t need to be there. “I don’t want to forget, Thomas.”

It shocks me when he starts straight-up sobbing, but it’s even more shocking when he holds my hand. But there is the happiness he promised, too. He loves me without being in love with me and that’s all I can ask of him. I don’t even need to hear him say it to believe it.

“No homo, Stretch.”

“I know.” I smile, and squeeze his hand back. “Hell of a happy ending, right?”

PART FOUR: MORE HAPPY THAN NOT

THE DAY

WE START OVER

The Leteo Institute, or more specifically, Evangeline, is able to get me short-listed for a reparative procedure they’ve been developing in Sweden.

In exchange, I’m going to help them out with some of the safer experimental science. The hope is to find a cure for amnesia one day. It may never happen in my lifetime, but maybe someone will figure it out eventually and I’ll have played a part in that. Funny how I once turned to Leteo to forget and now I’m counting on them to help me—and maybe millions of others—remember.

My mom considered moving us all upstate to get away from the sucker-punching memories, but we’re done running. Instead, we’re painting the walls white and starting over. I’m helping Mom with the bedroom. I know it’s hard. My father was the one who chose gray.

I ask her what color she’ll paint her new room.

“I think I’ll leave it white. It’s pure and reminds me of a rabbit I used to have. It’s nice to reflect, sometimes.”

THE DAY I LOOK AHEAD

Eric and I take a break from painting our living room green with a round of Avengers vs. Street Fighters. He chooses Wolverine, of course. I choose Black Widow because I’m tired of going easy on him.