“I fell skating and hurt my knee. It was bleeding a lot, and it went all over the ice.” She bent forward and pushed the bright blue leggings on her right leg up to her knee. There was a bandage on it with a picture of a bear that was likely from some kids’ TV show or movie. The only things I watched were on the security cameras of the places Hank wanted us to break into.
“Does your hand hurt?” she asked, shifting a bit closer to me.
I shrugged. When I’d been punching, pulling, and yanking on the metal grate, I hadn’t felt any pain. Only terror. Fear. Desperation.
And now… what I felt was undecipherable. The rage was there. Teetering on the edge and ready to crack me open with the slightest push.
“Grandpa Jack used to say if you count to five when something hurts really bad, the hurt can only get you for five seconds, and then you have to let it fly away. Just like a bird.”
“That’s stupid,” I mumbled.
Her laughter bubbled, and it was like a rainbow of balloons released into the sky. Airy. Light. Gentle. “Grandpa Jack would like you. He says to always be honest ’cause it saves time and….” She scrunched her lips together as she thought about it. “Your time’s up.”
I scowled, wishing she’d shut up.
“How old are you? I’m five, but I turn six in—” She stopped and counted on her fingers. “—seven more days.”
“Twelve,” I said, wondering why I spoke.
“Want to come to my birthday? Sarah-Jane can’t ’cause her parents won’t let her, and my brother and Dad are going away again.”
Jesus. “No,” I replied, probably too abruptly, but I didn’t like that the pain was easing as she talked.
She inhaled a long breath. “It’s okay. We’re not going to Wonderland, anyway, ’cause I cried a lot when I went on the rollercoaster. I was only four, though, and it scared me, so I asked Mom if I could bake a gummy bear cake ’cause I like the green ones the best.”
For one millisecond, I wished I could say yes. But then it sank into the depths of the darkness I lived in. I’d never been to a birthday. Never celebrated one either, which meant I didn’t even know when mine was. When I was five or six, I’d asked Hank and Maureen, aka Mom, when my birthday was because a kid at school had asked me. Hank said, “How the fuck should I know?” and Maureen never said a word as she counted the stack of bills on the kitchen table.
I made one up, and if anyone asked it was September 4th. I picked that day because I liked the fall, and I also liked going back to school.
When my brother was born, I made sure I memorized the date so we could secretly celebrate his birthday. Last year, I’d taken him to the cinema, and we’d snuck in through the air ducts to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed several times. There’d be no more sneaking into theaters. No more birthdays.
The girl’s hand settled on my fist that was pressing into my thigh, and I jerked, pop spilling onto the floor. “Don’t touch me,” I growled.
She didn’t flinch at my words. Instead, her tiny fingers tucked in the white bandage that had come loose over my knuckles. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. I promise.” She inhaled a soft breath. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a singer just like my mom. What do you want to be?”
My grip tightened around the can, and the tin crinkled, because she didn’t stop touching me. She gently pried open my fingers and looked at the bloody bandage covering the cuts and abrasions on my palms. I have no idea why I let her, but I did. Maybe to try to scare her with the bloody bandage.
But she actually moved closer, her brows furrowed as her tiny hand cupped mine.
I didn’t move. Waiting for the burning. The pain. The sting that always came when anyone touched me. But there was nothing. Fuckin’ nothing.
The girl slid her tiny hand into mine, and I stiffened, glaring at her. “What are you doing?”
“Holding your hand.”
“Why?”
“Because you need it.”
She didn’t say anything more, and neither did I. She just sat there and held my hand, and I let her.
I’d never had anyone hold my hand. Not even my little brother.
It was ten minutes before she released my hand and hopped off the bench. “I have to go now.” I glanced up at a tall, thin woman approaching with the same honey-blonde hair as the little girl. She was pale with black circles under her eyes, and there was a slight unsteadiness in her steps.
The little girl skipped over to her mother. No. It wasn’t skipping. It was springing off her skinny legs like a little bird hopping puddles. She slipped her hand into her mom’s just like she’d done mine, and I noticed her mom give her hand a little squeeze as she peered down at her, smiling.