He looked at me, shaking his head. “Come on, just answer,” he said, nudging my arm with his.

I exhaled loudly, leaning back on my palms. “Okay,” I said, “I’d just . . . if I could, I’d just walk up to my mother and say whatever I felt like saying, right at that moment. Maybe I’d tell her how much I miss my dad. Or how I worry about her. I don’t know what. Maybe it sounds stupid, but for once, I’d just let her know exactly how I feel, without thinking first. Okay?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt a wave of embarrassment pass over me in giving an answer, but this was more raw and real, and I was grateful for the near-dark for whatever it could hide of my expression. For a minute, neither of us said anything, and I wondered again how it was possible that I could confess so much to a boy I’d only known for half a summer.

“That’s not stupid,” he said finally. I picked at the tailgate, keeping my head down. “It’s not.”

I felt that weird tickle in my throat and swallowed over it. “I know. But just talking about anything emotional is hard for her. For us. It’s like she prefers we just not do that anymore.”

I swallowed again, then took a deep breath. I could feel him watching me.

“Do you really think she feels that way?” he asked.

“I have no real way of knowing. We don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about anything. That’s the problem.” I ran my finger around the edge of my water. “That’s my problem, actually. I don’t talk to anybody about what’s going on in my head, because I’m afraid they might not be able to take it.”

“What about this?” he asked, waving his hand between us. “Isn’t this talking?”

I smiled. “This is Truth,” I said. “It’s different.”

He pulled a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. The vomit story alone was huge.”

“Enough with the vomit story,” I said, exasperated. “Please God I’m begging you.”

“The point is,” he continued, ignoring this, “that you’ve told me a lot playing this game. And while some of it might be weird, or heavy, or downright gross—”

“Wes.”

“—it’s nothing I couldn’t handle.” He was looking at me now, his face serious. “So you should remember that, when you’re thinking about what other people can deal with. Maybe it’s not so bad.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe you’re just really extraordinary.”

As this came out, it was like someone else had said it. I just heard the words, even agreed with them, and a second later realized it was my voice. Oh, my God, I thought. This is what happens when you don’t think and just do.

We sat there, looking at each other. It was warm out, the fireflies sparkling around us, and he was close to me, his knee and mine only inches apart. I had a flash of how his hand had felt earlier, his fingers closing over mine, and for one crazy second I thought that everything could change, right now, if only I could let it. If he’d been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing would have stopped me.

“Okay,” I said, too quickly, “my turn.”

He blinked at me, as if he’d forgotten we were even playing. So he’d felt it, too.

“Right,” he said, nodding. “Go ahead. Hit me.”

I took in a breath. “What’s the one thing you’d do,” I asked, “if you could do anything?”

As always, he took a second to think, staring straight ahead out at the clearing. I had no idea what he’d say, but then I never did. Maybe he’d reply that he wished he could see his mom again, or suddenly be granted X-ray vision, or orchestrate world peace. I don’t know what I was expecting. But it wasn’t what I got.

“Pass,” he said.

For a second I was sure I’d heard wrong. “What?”

He cleared his throat. “I said, I pass.”

“Why?”

He turned his head and looked at me. “Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I just do.”

“You know what this means, right?” I said, and he nodded. “You know how the game works?”

“You have to answer whatever question I ask next,” he said. “And if you do, you win.”

“Exactly.” I sat up straighter, bracing myself. “Okay. Go ahead.”

He drew in a breath, and I waited, ready. But all he said was, “No.”

“No?” I said, incredulous. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean,” he repeated, as if I were slow, “no.”

“You have to ask a question,” I told him.

“Not immediately,” he replied, flicking a bug off his arm. “For a question this important, a question that carries the outcome of the game, you can take as long as you want.”

I could not believe this. “Says who?”

“Says the rules.”

“We have more than covered the rules,” I told him. “That is not one of them.”

“I’m making an amendment,” he explained.

I was truly stumped. In fact, everything that had happened in the last five minutes, from me calling him extraordinary, to that one moment I felt something shift, to this, felt like some sort of out-of-body experience.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “But you can’t just take forever.”