“Because you’re… simple.” I smile. “I like simple.” She doesn’t know what to say. But thanks to the conversation with her uncle earlier, I’m starting to understand.
You could do better. That’s what he said. And he must’ve said something similar to Madeline and that’s why she’s unsure of my intentions tonight.
I take her hand once again and squeeze it just a little. “I think you’re very pretty, Madeline. I like your sparkling eyes, I like your plaited hair, I like the way you dress, and talk, and laugh. I like the dust and the smell of sweet feed on your clothes. I like how you know everything about hay.” Then I shrug. “I just like you. I’m not teasing you. And if you want to come see my sanctuary, well… I can make that happen. And if you want to stay there, I can make that happen as well.”
She lets out a breath and her smile slowly creeps back. “You can? You will?”
“Sure.”
“Are they all like you?”
“Who?”
“Your people at your camp?”
“Well…” I bob my head back and forth a little, thinking about this. “We do all have one thing in common. Two, actually.”
“Really? What are they?”
And now I’m in trouble. Because my answers are ‘we are all monsters’ and ‘we are all cursed.’
But I don’t say that. I say, “We were all alone… until we found each other.”
Her brightness returns. Her cheeks might even blush pink, but it’s hard to tell in the moonlight.
“Come on.” I tug her. “Let’s find that waterfall.”
We’re quiet after that. And it’s not awkward or too silent, either. It’s just right.
We hear the waterfall before we turn the corner and see it. It’s not big, like the ones I’ve visited in the upstairs hallways. It’s rather small, actually. But it’s fitting for this place. Just the right size, actually.
Madeline leads me over to a picnic table and we sit, our backs to the table, and gaze out over a pool of silver water.
“I like to swim up here in the summer,” she says.
“Not afraid the monsters will get you?”
She chuckles. “No. But if there are monsters up here, then I love that.”
“Why?”
“Because. That’s why no one comes up here anymore. And the only reason I can.”
“You didn’t come up here with the other kids, did you?”
“Nope. I’m a loner. And before you feel sorry for me, don’t bother. I like being a loner.”
“Hmm. I like being a loner too. Especially when we’re alone together.”
She turns to look at me.
And I turn to look at her.
And then… there it is. She moves towards me, and I move towards her, and I have my first real kiss.
A kiss that is not a dare from Pell or a peck on the cheek to say goodbye.
A kiss that is… something else entirely. Something so very, very much more.