“I hate to think of her life with him.” She inhales, wiping at her eyes again. “My mum was…lovely.” She sounds breathless as she shields her eyes with one hand. “My father was the last of the unmarried males near her age.” She looks at her lap as she whispers, “He wasn’t good.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks at me, but it’s more like she’s looking through me. She draws her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around them.
“I hate to think of her that way.” Her throat sounds tight. Her head is kind of down there on her arms. That’s how I notice when her shoulders tremble.
For a second, I’m not sure what to do. Despite what she said, she seems fragile. Like if I fuck up, I might break her. But I can’t watch her cry without touching her. So I scoot closer. I sit right beside her, and I wrap my arm around her back. When she doesn’t tense or push me away, I wrap my other arm around her in the front and scoot still closer.
Finley’s body slackens against mine. “I killed them.” Her voice quavers. “I killed my mum.” I feel her shaking ramp up, and I squeeze her tighter. Fuck.
“No.” I shift her weight a little, so she’s in my lap—she’s in my arms—and wrap my hand around the back of her head. “I know that’s not true.”
“I did.” Her voice is tight and thick.
I rub her back as she shivers. I can feel her chest pump, as if she can’t get enough air.
“Hey…” I rub some circles on her back. “Just take some slow breaths. Do it with me, sweetheart.”
I inhale, pushing my chest out so she feels it. I feel her ribcage expand on a breath. Then she exhales with her cheek pressed to my shirt.
“That’s right.” I stroke her soft hair, drawing my fingertip along her pig-tail part. “You’re okay.” I hold her tighter.
“I pushed him.” It’s hissed against my chest. “It was supposed to be…the two of us…but he came along at the last moment.” She starts to really shake, and I wrap her tighter against me. “They were fighting, and he held her head into the water. So I shoved him. I didn’t know he’d go in. Mum went after him, trying to save him.” Her body is shaking so hard now that it almost scares me. I hold onto her, and she inhales, a little gasp. “She was wearing…this halo. Flower halo, from my party. I can see it…floating away.” Her shoulders shake as she weeps. “I did that.”
She wrenches out of my arms and dashes off the rock, her boots smacking the dirt of the trail as she lands on it. I’m on her heels, ready to run after her…except she doesn’t run. She leans over with her hands braced on her knees as I touch her back.
“Siren…” I run my hands over her shoulder blades, then think what I’d want if I was losing my shit and scoop her up. I carry her to another rock, a smaller one on the other side of the path, and sit down with Finley curled in my lap. I lock an arm around her, and she turns her face into my shoulder and sobs.
Fuck. Oh fuck.
I close my eyes, squeezing her as tightly as I can without hurting. Her whole body quakes as high-pitched, broken sounds come out of her.
“You’re okay, Siren. I’ve got you.”
I focus on my arms and then my hands, rubbing big circles on her back the way I liked when I was little. When her crying doesn’t let up and my chest is tight with feeling helpless, I shift our position on the stone a little bit and kind of rock her.
“I’ve got you, baby.” I trace down her spine and then back up, holding her by the shoulders, pressing my cheek against her head.
I keep on whispering and holding her real close like that. And slowly, her sobs turn to little gasps. Her body quivers with those little crying aftershocks, and I realize this one spot on my chest feels kind of damp.
I hear her sniff and feel her forehead press against my fleece’s collar. She exhales, this little whimpering sound that makes my throat knot up. I run my hand along her spine again, slow up and down, until I feel her body stiffen, and she leans away, looking up at me with swollen eyes and a soft mouth.
Little strands of hair have come free from her braids and become pasted to her damp cheeks. I stroke the hair back off her face, and she blinks at me.
I don’t know why—I kiss her forehead, then her cheeks…and then her lips. She tastes like salt and feels just like the whole damn universe right here where I can nibble at her throat and wipe her eyes and breathe her breath until I’m dizzy.
She returns the onslaught with her hot mouth and her grasping hands, until we have to break away to breathe.
Her molten eyes are wide and slightly dazed. In a voice that cracks, she says, “I shouldn’t do this.”
“Why not?”
Anything she says, I’ll honor. I don’t want to hurt her. But she doesn’t speak. Tears pool in her eyes and spill down her cheeks, and I kiss them off because I just…can’t not. I’ve never felt this way before. Like all my moves are played out for me. I can only follow.
“Let me tell you something.” I frame her face with my hands, looking into her eyes for a second before pressing my cheek next to hers. “Before I left…back in November…we had this field trip group at headquarters.” I run my hand over one of her braids and feel her chest move as she leans against me.
“Bunch of first graders that came to tour the place where we train. So we do all this stuff with them, right? Show them the locker rooms, give them all T-shirts and shit. And then it’s time for them to eat. And corporate’s got these little cracker bags and juice boxes. Like one in ten of them could open up the bag and get the straw into the juice box.” I lean back a little bit, so I can look down at her. “Right when it was time for them to go, I heard one of the little fuckers got lost in a stairwell. Pissed himself. One of my buddies had to donate boxer shorts to this kid. Seven years old.