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“Eddie, we all know it's my fault.” Tommy's voice was bland, flat, but his grip on the new crutch they had just bought him tightened.
He wasn't wrong. Eddie hated himself for thinking it, but if Tommy hadn't gotten tied up with that group of thugs, they wouldn't be burning all of their saved cash on doctors. The lacerations were shallow, they'd said, but there was damage done to some gory bits of his insides. It had left Tommy with a cough that rattled blood and breaths that came too quick and too shallow.
“Don't say things that aren't true, kid! We're all in this together, got that?”
Tommy looked up at him, balefully, from where he lay prone on the bottom bunk. “You should just leave,” he whispered, tilting his head and shadowing his glassy eyes.
“What kind of eggs do you take us for?!” Sally exploded, stomping her foot on the uneven floorboards. They creaked. “I thought you were a tough guy! Tough guys don't leave behind their best friends.”
Eddie smiled privately at her seamless adoption of his and Tommy's slang. For a girl from Seattle, she sure had enough dialects under her belt to pass as a denizen anywhere she went. “Sally's right. You're sticking with us, from now till the end.”
Tommy got better. So did his pursuers, at finding where he lived.
“This is the last train I'm ever getting on, y’hear? I'm- there won't be a next time, I'm done with this, I won't- won't…” Eddie trailed off, his voice growing heavy. It carried an infinite weight to it, clouding his chest with putrid, pitch-black smog. It tasted like train exhaust at the back of his throat.
Tommy noticed. Of course he did, reliable Tommy, empathetic Tommy, best-friend-something-else Tommy. He hobbled over to the metal alcove Eddie had sequestered himself to, jerking with every bounce of the train and teetering dangerously without his crutch. It had been lost in the jump - just another way their lives had taken a turn for the over.
Sally looked up from her bread rations, jumping to her feet. She looped her arm around Tommy's shoulders and dragged him over to Eddie at a speed he never would have achieved on his own. Tommy, who hated being helped, who refused it at every turn and insisted , truly insisted to do things himself, let it happen. Apparently, right now, he cared more about quickness than pride. Apparently, there was something Eddie had that he needed to be present for.
Tommy slid down to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the mechanical cave. “Hey, kid-” he started, but cut off when Eddie coughed out a rasping, broken sob. The dam broke, its carefully shored up false promises and fabricated hope collapsing under their own weight. Tommy's breathing quickened almost imperceptibly when Eddie collapsed onto him, the boy tucking his weeping face into Tommy's neck. Arms raised to encircle his back, pulling Eddie closer to the only thing that mattered right now. He'd ride another train for Tommy. He'd ride a hundred trains to have Tommy like this.
“Hey, kid,” Tommy murmured, again, “what's wrong?”
Eddie choked down another sob. He'd once told Tommy he could bawl, when the doctor had begun the operation to remove Tommy's leg. It felt like cheating that he could cry without restraint now, when Tommy had tried so hard not to back then. Tommy brushed Eddie's hair back with his left hand, carding through the strands like they weren't caked with months of slum grime and industrial smoke. When Tommy pulled his hand back, Eddie embarrassed himself by tilting his head back into it. Tommy didn't care. Tommy was so good.
“It's not the trains.” Eddie finally said, steadier than before, with his face still pressed into Tommy's collarbone. “It's all of it. The moving. The changing. God, even the food's been worse.” He sucked in a breath. “Tastes like ash.”
“You're right, you're right. This'll be the last move. We'll settle down, find jobs – find a place in a town that doesn't know us.” Tommy laughed a little, at his own words. “When did I become the optimist? See, this is what happens when you're bawling and all. One of us has to take over for you. It isn't right.”
Eddie laughed a little at that, finally put-together enough to sit up next to Tommy instead of on top of him. Then he sobered. “That's not all it is, see? Tommy, look me in the eyes and tell me we'll ever go home. New York was the last chance we had, and that gang chased us out effectively enough. My dad's never gonna see me again. I'm never going to see him . They're probably worried sick, think us dead, they're not far from what's true, Mom-”
“Eddie.”
Eddie lifted his head. Tommy was just sitting there, an expression somewhere between contemplation and agony etched in the lines of his face. His gaze was fixed on a metal screw sticking out of the train by Eddie's right shoe. “Eddie, we'll make it back. Don't you worry. I'll take up sewing, or crocheting, or something. We'll find a way to make money, jobs or not.”
“Tommy, look me in the eyes.”
Tommy shook his head, clutching his threadbare coat to his midsection. His stare still bored into that old, rusty metal screw.
“Eddie…what are we gonna do?” he asked softly.
Sally sat down outside their alcove. She seemed alert to their conversation, but unwilling to intrude.
“We're going to find a town with an abandoned house, and we're gonna build a life. Just the three of us. We're going to make it, alright? We've got to try.” Her voice cut through their dread like a hot knife through butter. “Alright?”
Tommy's eyes finally slipped off that damn screw. “Golly, Sally, where'd you get that nerve?”
“You boys left on the floor, ripe for the taking. Wasn't even hard to pocket.”
Eddie grinned at that, casting his gaze up, to the sliver of sky they could see from the car. “I guess we're free, then. From our past, from the other boys on the trains.” No one else had thought to break into their chosen car. Tommy had picked the lock on it, replacing it expertly on the inside. There was a bright band of sky all around the walls from a large gap in the wooden plywood, so they could still see.
“Really free? Like…there's nothing left for us, that kind of free?” Tommy sounded…strange. Eddie looked over at him, surprised to see him looking back. Staring, even, with an intensity that shook him. Tommy seemed to take this as encouragement. “I've been thinking about Harriet. Well, no, I've been thinking about that fact that I'm not thinking about her, haven't been for a while, and its-” Tommy exhaled shakily. “You're saying we're free from the past? Because I think I'd like to move on.”
“You've got another girl on your mind?” Eddie asked, eyebrows raised. “Oh no, it's not Sally, is it? She's off limits.” Sally sent him a stink eye. “It just wouldn't be right.”
Tommy laughed, a little breathily. “No, it's not Sally.” Then, he turned his whole body, scooting into the space Eddie had carefully sat himself up in. “Eddie. It's you.”
Eddie stared at him. Shock wasn't the right word, since this feeling in his chest felt too old, too expected. It had been a long time coming, really. They had each other from the very start, and neither had any intention of letting go. This moment was inevitable.
Sally whistled, getting up to cross the train car. Was she…giving them privacy?
“Eddie.”
“Tommy.”
“Eddie.”
“Well? I'm no egg. I'm not about to say no.”
Tommy inched forward, holding out the hand that had embraced him minutes prior and bringing it to the side of Eddie's face. Eddie wiggled forward on his knees, bringing himself so close to Tommy he could see the flecks of dark grey in his blue eyes. They kissed. It felt like home.