What She Found in the Woods

‘Now,’ I say, almost shouting. ‘I want to go now.’

He doesn’t move right away, so I strike out on my own. I really don’t care which way I’m going. I don’t care if I’m wandering around the woods all damn night. I have to get out of here.

Bo catches up and runs backwards in front of me as I march on. ‘You’re going the wrong way,’ he says, putting his hands on my shoulders to stop me. ‘What happened? Did my dad say something to you?’

I look at him, and the thing my mind unearthed earlier rises again like the undead. Which is: if Ray is Dr Goodnight, then Bo has to know. There’s no way Bo can’t know. He’s not blind or stupid or too young to get it. If his father were a kingpin drug lord and a psychopathic murderer to boot, Bo would know.

I shake my head, but I’m not sure at what. I think I’m just saying no to my own inner voice. I cannot accept that Bo could be a part of anything like that. I don’t care how bad it all looks. There’s got to be another explanation.

‘Please tell me what’s going on,’ Bo whispers. His mouth is still a little swollen from kissing me.

I give up and lean against him. I’m too tired to talk or think, and I just want to be close to him. I want him to hold me, and I can’t help but think that if I truly thought that he was the willing accomplice of a brutal psychopath, I couldn’t want that.

Unless I am fully insane.

30 JULY. AFTERNOON

Bo walks me back to our spot, but I insist he turn back, rather than walk me all the way home.

‘There’s still plenty of light,’ he says, glancing down shyly. He turns to face me, holding both my hands in his. ‘I want to meet your grandparents.’

‘That’s a terrible idea,’ I groan.

‘No it isn’t,’ he says, smiling. His face suddenly falls. ‘Unless you’re embarrassed by me.’

I give him a warning look. ‘We’re past that.’

‘We are?’ he asks uncertainly.

I roll my eyes. ‘I’m in love with an idiot,’ I grumble. He laughs, and I know we’re OK. ‘I’m not bringing you home to meet my grandparents because they’re going to ask all kinds of questions you can’t answer, and you’re not good at lying, Bo. If my grandparents even think that you live on public land, they’ll report you. One of the first things my grandmother did when I got here was warn me about the druggies in the woods.’

‘We’re not druggies,’ he says, confused either by the word or the notion that anyone would define his family in that way.

‘To them you are. My grandmother would love to turn you in. It would make her year. She’d probably put the fact that she got a whole family arrested in her Christmas cards.’

He mentally stumbles for a moment over the Christmas card thing, clearly not understanding that most people give yearly updates to acquaintances that way. In fact, I sort of wonder if Bo knows what a

Christmas card even is. He shakes off his confusion quickly in lieu of frustration. He’s frustrated because he knows I’m right.

‘You said once that you wanted to come home with me because you wanted to know everything about me,’ he says. ‘I feel the same about you.’

‘You’re not going to learn anything about me from my grandparents,’ I say, shaking my head and smiling. ‘They’re cardboard cut-outs. They’re not real, because real people are messy, God forbid. And when I’m around them, I’m not real. I live in their house, and I’m grateful they’ve taken me in, but in order to stay, I have to be the granddaughter they want or they’ll kick me out. And I’ve got no place else to go,’ I admit. ‘My parents made that clear. I can’t live with either of them in New York any more.’

I look down, a little ashamed of it all. The compromises I’ve made since I got here, the fact that my grandparents really would tell me to move out if I bothered them too much, and that my parents are done with me and each other because of me – I burned all of those bridges.

‘Besides,’ I say, breathing a tired laugh and looking back up at him, ‘you don’t need to meet my grandparents to understand me. You already understand me better than I understand myself.’

Bo shakes his head slowly and moves a lock of my hair behind my shoulder. He stares at me for a long time before he kisses me.

Why did I never like the idea of sex before? This is the second time in one day I’m practically tearing Bo’s clothes off and begging him. He pulls back and shakes himself.

‘Not like this,’ he says, more to himself than me. ‘Not on the ground. I mean, I want to.’ He sits back and rubs his forehead. ‘I really want to.’ He laughs at himself and looks up at me longingly. ‘But you’re tired, and your arm probably hurts, and we don’t even have a blanket.’

I laugh and nod. ‘My arm does hurt,’ I admit, looking at the welts the bow left.

‘Did my dad give you something for it?’ Bo asks.

‘Yeah,’ I whisper, staring at his worried, precious face. I dig out the salve and pills from opposite pockets in my shorts.