He laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.” And as if proving my point, “Dad wants to talk to you.”
“Oh. About what?” I tried to think back if I’d done something wrong already. I couldn’t remember everything I’d said yesterday. It wasn’t much. Maybe that was the problem.
“It’s okay, Ox. He’s not as scary as he looks.”
“Liar.”
“Well, yeah. But it’s good you know that already. It’ll make things easier.” He suddenly laughed, as if he’d heard something funny. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, waving his hand at me.
They were grilling, Mark and Thomas. I wanted desperately to go stand by them. Shoot the shit. Talk like I belonged. I gathered up my courage.
Only to have Mark turn and walk toward me. “We’ll talk later,” Mark said, squeezing my shoulder before I could say anything. He left me with Thomas. Thomas had at least three inches on me and maybe forty pounds in his chest and arms and legs. I was bigger than most, even at sixteen. But Thomas was bigger still.
He eyed the box in my hand. “Joe tied the ribbon himself,” he said. “Wouldn’t let anyone else help.”
Honesty, maybe. “I almost told him I couldn’t take it.”
An eyebrow rose. “Why is that?”
“It seems… precious.”
“It is.”
“Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would he give it to me?”
Maddeningly, “Why not?”
“I don’t have precious things.”
“I understand you live with your mother.”
“Yes.” And then I knew what he meant. “Oh.”
“We’re all allowed to have certain things that are just ours.” He motioned for Kelly to come to the grill. “Walk with me, Ox.”
I followed him. He led me away from the house. Into the trees. A man I only met the day before. And yet I felt no hesitation. I told myself it was because I was starved for the attention and nothing more.
“We used to live here,” he said. “Before you. Carter was only two when we left. It wasn’t meant to be for as long as it was. That’s what is so funny about life. And so scary. It gets in the way and then one day, you open your eyes and a decade has passed. Even more.” He reached out and brushed his hands along score marks in the trunk of a tree. His fingers almost fit it perfectly and I wondered what could have caused such scrapes. It looked like claw marks.
“Why did you leave?” I asked, though it was not my place.
“Duty called. Responsibilities that couldn’t be ignored, no matter how hard we tried. My family has lived in these woods for a very long time.”
“It must be good to be home.”
“It is,” he said. “Mark kept an eye out every now and then, but it wasn’t the same as touching the trees myself. He’s quite taken with you, you know.”
“Mark?”
“Sure. Him too. You think you hide, Ox, but you give so much away. The expressions on your face. The breaths you take. Your heartbeat.”
“I try not to.”
“I know, but I can’t figure out why. Why do you hide?”