When I wake up shaking from a nightmare, from bad memories, when the deep cold pit of fear opens up in my stomach, I think of her, a few houses down the street. When I remember the bullies I encountered in foster homes, when I remember Connor, I think of her, and I can breathe again.
So when she comes over to the house today, I look up from where I’m painting the fence, and smile. It feels good to be outside, moving and creating something, instead of stewing inside four walls, lost inside my mind.
Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, strands of flyaway hair in her eyes, her lips chapped, and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
We should kiss, I think randomly. Otherwise we’ll never know how good it could be. I think it’s time.
“Hey, Rett.”
I nod at her. “Hey yourself.” I keep painting, keeping an eye on her. “What’s up?”
She bites her lower lip, and I stare until my brush starts dripping on the grass. Damn, it’s hot when she does that. “Nothing much. You?”
“Same.” I won’t tell her about the Lowes again, or Sebastian’s barbs whenever he sees me. Fuck no. I lay the brush over the can of paint. “Wanna grab a coffee?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
That’s when I notice she won’t look me in the eye. Her cheeks are splotchy and I realize her eyes look red-rimmed. What the fuck happened?
Worried, I get up from my crouch and stretch my legs. “How about a walk?”
“Okay.”
That’s our thing, I guess. Walking side by side. I close the can of paint, leave everything where it is, and I don’t fucking care if Mr. Lowe yells at me about it.
I hurry out the gate to join her, and she smiles, but it’s not convincing. Something happened, that’s for sure.
We walk together down the street, and even though we don’t hold hands, I can almost feel her slim fingers in mine.
One day, I tell myself. One day, maybe, we will.
“Will you tell me what happened?” I ask as we pass by the Jensens’ house with the white picket fence. A fairytale house, with chocolate tiles on the roof and pink candy windows.
“Not today,” she says. “Today I just want to walk with you down the street, like we always do.”
Can’t be anything all that bad, I think, shrugging and matching her much shorter strides. If it was, she’d tell me.
Right?
Maybe she had a fight with her friend, that Sydney chick she always talks about. Or with her brother. So what if she cried? Girls cry more often than boys.
I haven’t shed a tear for as long as I can remember, and I’ve tried. I’ve tried to let all the grief and anger out, but I can only smash things, destroy things, and the ache in my chest never lessens.
It’s as if the tears I’ve kept inside have dried up, their salt hardening around my heart, turning it to stone, but now... now I feel things. Since I met her, I feel, and it scares me.
As we walk and walk, saying nothing and hearing everything, I think she may be undoing the spell. The shell is cracking. The numbness is fading. It occurs to me that with one blow she may well crush me.
Well, I did say she’s worth it.
I just didn’t think she’d do it. Crush me under her heel.
Christ, how many times do I have to get it wrong to realize I know fuck-all, and that hope will always screw me over?
***
The first indication that the world has gone to shit once more is the ambulance I find waiting outside the house when I return from school two days later.
There’s a catch in my breath, in my heartbeat, in my whole body. I stumble, and have to hold on to the fence not to fall on my face.