Jessica opened the door, and it was cold. "Hey, Jess," the cold said. "Is Gabe here?"

She looked further around the door, and saw Michael in a denim jacket, shifting his feet. "Oh. Yeah, he showed up about an hour and a half ago. We folded out the couch for him." She waved him in, and shut the door quickly behind him.

"That long ago, huh? He must have left before I was even sure. . ."

"Hi, Mike!" Nathaniel piped, as Michael peeked through the living room doorway.

Gabriel twisted around to look at him. "Hi, Mickey," he said shyly, not sure if he was in trouble. The two of them, Jessica's brother and Michael's, were lying on the folded-out mattress, watching a movie. There was a blanket for each of them, but they'd piled them one atop the other and crawled underneath together. "Are you gonna take me home?"

"I guess not," Michael said. "You can go back tomorrow. I just wanted to find you and make sure you were okay."

The boys looked at each other and grinned. Sleepover. "Okay," Gabriel said.

"I was worried, though. You should have left me a note, or something. I wouldn't have told."

"Okay," his brother said again, and turned back to the movie. He and Nate squirmed around each other as they got comfortable again.

"They cuddle like puppies," Jess said, leading Mike into the kitchen. "Mom calls them 'the twins,' but I wonder sometimes." She turned on the gas under the kettle, and got down two mugs without bothering to ask. "Gabe didn't say much - what was going on over there?" Mike told her. "Shit."

"Yeah. Usually, when they get like this and I'm around, he sneaks into my room, and we talk and stuff, try to ignore them. This time I waited and he didn't show up. When I checked his room, there were pillows stuffed under the blankets."

"What, so it looked like him sleeping?"

Mike shrugged. "If you were really drunk. Has he done this before?"

"Yeah, a few times. He insisted it was just to play, and Nate backed him up, but when he started hiking over here in the dark the excuses got thin."

"That figures," Mike sighed. "I'd worry about him, the nights I didn't come home, picturing him sitting alone in the dark and listening to Mom and Dad yell at each other. Should have known he'd be smarter than that." He took the cup of chocolate from her. "You could have told me."

"Because we talk all the time these days, right?" she said. Mike winced. "Anyway, he didn't tell me anything, remember? For all I knew, he was running from you."

"You knew about my parents."

"Yeah, well, and you've been going to choir practice on weekends?"

Mike stared at her. Her sarcasm hadn't used to be so nasty. "Jess, are you mad at me?"

She peered into her tea. "I didn't know what to think, okay? Something was obviously wrong over there. Besides, you changed, Mike. No, don't deny it, you did."

He frowned. "I grew up, Jess. People do that. We can't be eight forever. But you know I'd never hurt Gabe. He'd never have to run from me."

"And if I heard him mutter the word 'drinking,' I should have known immediately he wasn't talking about you, right?"

"Fuck you," Mike said, choked and quiet so their brothers couldn't hear. "I've never had a drop in my life. I'm not like them."

"What, you go to all those parties and stay sober? Gimme a break."

"Yeah, Jess. That's exactly what I do. Come on, you think I'd drink? You think I look at my parents every night and go, 'Gee, I want to be just like Dad?' Fuck you!"

"What was I supposed to think? I'm not even sure I believe you. Is there a reason people go to lacrosse team parties, besides getting wasted and getting laid?"

There was a silence, a long one, while they stared at each other over what was now between them. "No," Mike said quietly. "There's not." He drained his chocolate. When he looked up, he saw Jess looking past him, over his shoulder. Possessing the same older-sibling instincts, he heard it too a moment later.

"Come on in, guys," Jess said. "You can have some hot chocolate." Mike heard hurried whispers from the hallway, including the word "kissing." He and Jess exchanged amused glances. Then Gabe and Nate padded in sheepishly. "What happened to the movie?" Jess asked, as she lit the burner again.

"It was over," Nate said.

"So what do you two want to do once you've got your chocolate?" The already-hot kettle didn't take long.

"Nintendo?" Nate asked.

"Sure. Just don't have the volume too high." She poured the chocolate, stirred, and handed them each a mug.

"Are you going to play, Mickey?" Gabe asked.

"Later, okay? I want to talk to Jess."

Gabe nodded. "'Kay." Then Nate grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the kitchen.

"You realize they were trying to spy on us making out?" Mike said, once they heard the game start up.

"Oh, for the world to be so simple again."

Mike snorted. "Are we remembering the same childhood?"

Jess didn't answer. "Why do you go, then?" she asked instead. "Really."

"Really?" Mike tilted his chair back. "Because it's not home. If people are drunk, they're drunk and laughing, or else it's just stupid high-school drama shit and nobody cares. It's not. . . that."

"If things aren't any simpler when you're ten," Jess said, "they can't be any more complicated when you're forty-five. Same stupid shit, different year."

"I just want to be somewhere else, okay? I just don't want to be there. Like Gabe. I wish I'd been smart enough to just take off, at his age."

"Didn't you? I remember us tearing around the sand pits at night, that summer."

"Yeah, but that wasn't on purpose. You just showed up and bounced rocks off my window, and I snuck out to play. I wasn't thinking of it as getting away from my parents."

"Really?" Jess said.

"What does that mean?"

"Never mind. You're gonna fall if you keep leaning the chair that way."

Mike tilted forward again, landing with a thump. "I hate it so much. I hate the way they get. I'm tired of dealing with it, how violent they are."

"They hit. . ."

"No, not that kind of violence. Not physical. It's almost all words, but, God, Jess! They know every horrible way to hurt each other. And most of them are me and Gabe. Isn't that sick? I know my parents love me because they hurt each other best by fighting over me. If I bring home a test grade, good or bad, it's enough to let Dad reduce Mom to screaming hysterics. If Gabe draws something and leaves it where Mom can find it, she'll be howling that night about how Dad turns kids into soulless bookworms and her son is so wonderfully creative."

Jess nodded. "I see how even a lacrosse party would start looking good."

"I've thought about not going back."

"Jay McAllister throws a lot of parties, but I don't think he'd let you live there."

"Not stay at the parties. Just. . . go. Walk down to the highway and stick out a thumb."

"Mike, you're fifteen. The city eats teenage runaways."

"Not the city. West. There's still farms in Pennsylvania, where they could take on a kid and no one would care. I'm not too smart to use my hands."

"Mike! You know that's stupid, right?"

He shook his head. "It was always Gabe that stopped me. I thought he needed me - he's too little to run away, I thought he'd go crazy in that house without me. But I guess he's got his own way of dealing with it. He seems okay here."

Jess' eyes flashed. "Don't tempt me to kick him out. I didn't help him just so you could pull something like this."

"I can't live like this. It's killing me, Jess, I don't know how but I can feel it. It's like it's eating my soul. It's like if I wait three more years there'll be nothing left to leave."

Jess looked at him for a long time, and then nodded. She got up and took their empty mugs to the sink. As she was rinsing them, she said, "The girl."

Mike nodded. He'd expected this to come up, expected it earlier, actually. "Angeline? What about her?"

"Do you love her?"

"Not really," he answered truthfully. "She's kind of a bitch." He'd expected Jess to be relieved to hear this. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were about to cry. "Jess? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, blinking. She turned the water off and looked up, at the window over the sink. "Oh!" She peered into the glass, opened the window so there wouldn't be a reflection. "Oh, look."

"What is it, Jess?" Mike asked, getting up to see.

"There! Do you see that?"

He looked into her back yard, saw nothing but the fringe of trees behind it. "No."

"There, look! They're almost gone."

"I don't see anything, Jess."

She frowned. "Come on, I'll get my jacket. They weren't moving too fast." He followed her to the coat closet, out the front door. It was cold, the way it is in autumn at night, and there were no stars. Jess led him into her back yard, into the trees. The stretch of woods was only about thirty yards wide. Mike could see through to the parking lot lights almost as soon as they passed the first tree.

A dry twig snapped behind them, and they turned. Gabe and Nate were there, in hasty sweatshirts and sneakers without socks, close to each other for warmth. They'd been trying to catch Mike and Jess kissing again, probably. "Jess just wanted to show me something," Mike said. He was about to tell them to go back inside when Jess said, "Come on, you three, hurry."

They came out in the wide parking lot. They could see the back of the store, and the orange lights, and on a narrow grassy median were two deer, born only that spring. They were startlingly small, the size of dogs except for the length of their legs, and had no horns. They stepped with delicate carelessness as they cropped the grass.

Mike stepped forward. These were suburban deer, with no fear of humans, and they didn't react. Fifteen feet was as close as he dared come. He sat on his ankles, watching them step, step, and keep eating. One of them looked at him, with empty brown eyes.

"Why don't they go somewhere else?" Gabe asked.

"Where would they go?" Jess said.

"The forest. That's where deer live."

"There isn't enough forest. They'd starve, and die."

"Oh," Gabe said, and by the way he said it he understood they would probably die here, too.

"They're pretty," Nate said.

"I think so, too," Jess answered. The deer moved, walking on to find some other patch of grass. Mike watched them, walking with their mincing, high steps as though the asphalt were broken glass. Jess stepped up beside him and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing very hard. Gabe and Nate stood behind them, shivering hand in hand.