Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

“You’re weird.” He says this, but he isn’t leaving. I don’t know why. But it doesn’t bother me. He’s… well. He’s Kelly. He’s a little cold, but sometimes I catch myself watching him when he smiles.

“I was reading,” I tell him. “And then I just decided that I wanted to think.”

“What were you reading?”

I waggle my eyebrows. “A pirate story. He was plundering some booty.”

He grimaces as I show him the cover, a woman in a frilly dress pressed against the bare chest of a pirate with the terrible name of Captain Peter Longhook. “Ox said you read those books.”

I snort. “Those books. Wow. That was a lot of disdain in just two words. Congrats, I guess.”

And then he laughs.

In the scheme of things, it should be nothing.

It’s small, and it surprises him as much as it does me.

Later, when I’m trying to sleep, I’ll replay it over and over again in my head, this moment,

these few seconds, as it’s the first time I ever made Kelly Bennett laugh.

He doesn’t leave.

He sits next to me.

He doesn’t talk much, but that’s okay. I talk enough for the both of us. I—

I

i

i am wolf

i am wolf and kelly

needs food

kelly must have food

deer i will kill him a deer

biggest deer

there you are deer

i will kill you

deer is faster than me

stupid deer

i hate you deer

something else

i run back to house

i find a box