“Violet is usually a color.”
“It’s still a name.”
Now that we weren’t whispering, I noticed Miller’s voice had pretty much already changed. Deepening but without that squeak to it, like poor Benji Pelcher, who sounded like he took hits off helium balloons. Miller had a nice voice. Low and kind of scratchy.
“Well?” Miller asked. “What do you want?”
I cocked my head at him. “You’re awfully grouchy.”
“Maybe I have a reason to be.”
“Which is…?”
“None of your business.” He glanced around at the darkened forest behind him. “I should get back.”
He said it with a kind of sadness. The giving-up kind. Like he would rather do anything than go back.
So don’t let him go.
I softened my tone. “Can you at least tell me what you’re doing out here?”
“I told you. Taking a walk.”
“In a dark forest at night? Do you live nearby? I’ve never seen you before.”
“We just moved. Me and my mom.”
“Cool. Then we’re neighbors.”
Miller jerked his chin at my house. “I don’t live in a house like that.”
The bitterness in his voice was so strong, I could practically taste it.
“Won’t your mom worry you’re out here?”
“She’s at work.”
“Oh.”
I didn’t know any parents who worked at night in my neighborhood, unless they were in tech like my dad. He spent late hours at his computer, but I doubted that Miller’s mom was working late at InoDyne or one of the other big places near the university.
Most tech kids could afford shoelaces.
A silence fell, and Miller kicked at the dirt with his boot, hands still jammed in his jacket pockets, eyes on the ground, as if waiting for something to happen next. Frogs chirped, and the forest breathed behind him.
“So, you’re new here?”
He nodded.
“I go to Coastline Middle.”
“I’ll go there too.”
“Cool. Maybe we’ll have some of the same classes.”
Maybe we can be friends.
“Maybe.” He glanced up at my house, a longing expression on his face.