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  She squeezed his hand.

  It took Ryan a while before he could speak.

  “I go out onto the back deck sometimes. It’s cold there these days. I sit on the bottom step, and I imagine that you’re up there behind me, just looking out at the same scenery as me. I know you’re not there. You never come out. But as long as I’m sitting there, you could come out, you might come out, and then we’d just talk about stuff, about nothing, about big ideas, about dreams and plans. Like the friends we were. Like the lovers we are.”

  He knew it was daring to say “lovers” because he knew that in some key ways they weren’t, and would never be. But they loved each other and so it was the right word.

  And she didn’t contradict him.

  She let go of his hand.

  He looked down at the table in front of him. “We aren’t going to eat together, are we?” he said softly.

  She didn’t answer.

  He looked up and Father was sitting there. “I told her to order the prime rib,” said Dad. “I knew you’d make her get horseradish.”

  Then Dad handed a handkerchief across the table. Ryan turned toward the corner of the booth, and then lowered himself down onto the bench and cried.

  When he was done crying, and the handkerchief was soaking wet, he sat up and the food was on the table in front of him. “Got to eat,” said Dad. “Put the handkerchief in your pocket. Always return handkerchiefs clean and dry.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” said Ryan.

  “Bizzy was afraid this would hurt you too bad, but I said you could take it. Was I right?”

  Ryan nodded. “Far as I know.”

  “And Bizzy was afraid she couldn’t take it, but I said I didn’t care, she owed you a goodbye.”

  “She did,” said Ryan. “But I do care, and I think she took it fine.”

  “So I won’t tell you that she was crying into her napkin on the way out to her parents’ car because sure, she can take it, she’ll take it fine.”

  “She’ll marry somebody else someday,” said Ryan.

  “If she does, you won’t know it, because it will only happen when she knows that she can never come back to you, so she’ll never tell you.”

  “Will I ever love somebody?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes,” said Dad. “Because you’re a good man, and there are women who are looking for a good man and know one when they see him, and the right one will be what you’re looking for, too.”

  “But Dad,” said Ryan. “I’m still me. And if I love someone, then if anybody tries to harm her . . . I’ll kill them.”

  “You’ll stop them,” said Dad. “And if they die, that won’t be your intent.”

  “No, it won’t,” said Ryan.

  “Your steak is getting cold,” said Dad.

  Ryan looked down at his plate. At his baked potato. He started mashing the butter and sour cream into the potato and then dug in and ate everything on his plate.

  Apparently he still had an appetite.

  Apparently, even though Bizzy was gone, probably forever, he still wanted to be alive.

  About the Author

  Orson Scott Card, the author of the New York Times bestseller Ender’s Game, has won several Hugo and Nebula awards for his works of speculative fiction. His Ender novels are widely read by adults and younger readers and are increasingly used in schools. Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy, American-frontier fantasy, biblical novels, poetry, plays, and scripts.