I stood in front of a worn bungalow—one of many packed too tightly on the street, like Troy’s teeth. As if summoned from my thoughts alone, Troy appeared from the shadows on the side of the house, leaning against the dirty blue siding. He beckoned me toward him with one arm. I went, partly because he was beckoning me, but mostly because I needed to get closer to the house.
There were so many things wrong with the situation. Troy was there, and I didn’t know why. I was there, and I didn’t know why. Except for the pull. But the only thing I could explain, just like at the hospital, was my hands. So I held them up to Troy, whom I didn’t really know, and whispered, “Something’s wrong with me.”
Troy put a finger to his lips and pulled me into the backyard, which was not really a backyard so much as a patch of grass separating the backs of two homes. He pressed me up against the siding in the most shaded corner. He held me against the house with his body, and took my trembling hands in his. He whispered in my ear, “Nothing’s wrong with you.”
I sucked in the cold night air, trying to calm myself, trying to still my hands, trying to scratch the itch. The air was laced with something, something off. . . . “I smell smoke,” I said, not quite in a whisper.
Troy held his gloved hand over my mouth just as the smoke detectors began wailing inside the house.
I bit him. It wasn’t premeditated. But with his hand on my mouth and the ringing in my ears, all I could think of was my hands tied to the bed and the sleeping pills pushed at me and everyone telling me what to do and how to be, and I could barely take it from the people I knew. I didn’t know Troy. I couldn’t take being pushed around, so I bit him.
He let out a surprised noise and held his gloved hand close to his face. I turned to the house and stood on my toes, peering into the windows. Smoke billowed against the glass in small waves. To the side, close to the wall, was the corner of a wooden headboard. A bed. This was a bedroom. My fingers shook against the glass, which felt so warm in the cold night.
Troy put his arms around my waist and pulled me back. “We have to go,” he said.
“That’s the bedroom. What if someone’s in there?”
“Let’s go.” Troy was strong. I could feel it in his arms. I wouldn’t be able to get free if he didn’t want me to.
So I said, “Okay,” and he let go. Then I ran up the rickety back steps and pulled on the door. But a searing, blinding pain shot through my shaking hand. I jerked my hand back from the burning metal knob and cried out. Inside the back window, flames spilled out from the stove. They caught on the curtains and rose upward. Troy was at my side, whispering into my ear, but I wasn’t listening. Because all I could see was a cane, wrapped in a red ribbon, leaning against the far wall. A long flame stretched toward the cane and grazed the ribbon, and the entire cane ignited. I kicked at the burning door.
“He’s in there. He’s in there!” I screamed.
The yard grew brighter from the flames and the lights from the surrounding houses. People started running toward the house, and I heard sirens in the distance. “There’s nothing we can do,” Troy said, gripping me by the shoulders.
I looked down at my hand, at the bright red circle on my palm, and felt the pain. Only the pain. My fingers were still. The itch was gone. Only the burn remained.
Troy was about my height, so he didn’t have to bend down to get on eye level. His eyes were wild. “Delaney, look at me. Run.”
I ran.
I kept running even though I felt a twinge in my rib cage with every deep breath. I didn’t know why I was running or where I was running to, but the look in Troy’s eyes transferred the panic to me. I followed him as he wove between yards, keeping to the shadows. It made sense. What would I tell the police when they came? I left a party and wandered aimlessly around town until I smelled smoke? And if my parents found out that I was out in the cold alone, that would be it for any social life.
I almost ran into Troy when he stopped abruptly at the road. He threw open the passenger side of an old, boxy black car. “Get in,” he said.
We drove. I was crying. I was crying out loud, making these ridiculous hiccuping sounds, and Troy kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. I was crying because my hand was burning and throbbing. I was crying because there was a man in that house, a man I had seen at the mall, and I didn’t save him. I was crying because I didn’t know why I had been at that house. And I was crying because Decker had put his hands all over Tara Spano, and I’d never realized how much that would hurt.
Troy parked the car in front of an old brick apartment building. Everyone I knew lived in single-family homes, most with fenced-in yards. This building had a fence, but it was a battered chain-link fence, and it didn’t have a gate anymore. There was a small swing set in the partially enclosed yard, and the metal was coated with dirt and rust.
“Where are we?”
“My place,” Troy said, getting out of the car. “I can’t send you home like this.” I hoped he was talking about my hand, but I thought he was probably talking about the crying. I followed him inside. He didn’t even need a key to open the main door.
The hallway was narrow and musty. A talk show blared from a television nearby. A baby cried somewhere down the hall. I followed him up the wooden steps, holding tight to the railing in case the dilapidated steps gave out.
He unlocked a door on the second floor and chucked his boots across the entrance. Then he stood off to the side, in what was the kitchen, and leaned back against the counter.
I stood in the doorway, not quite in, not quite out. To my right, a brown couch sat across from a small television, separated only by a plywood coffee table. What passed for the kitchen was on my left—a strip of counter with a stove at one end and a refrigerator at the other. Behind the kitchen and the living area, an open door gave me a full view of an unmade bed.
“You live here? Alone?”
“Hey.” He took a tentative step toward me. “I’m not going to hurt you. Come in and shut the door. I’ll drive you home after I treat your burn.” I winced at the word, thinking that there was an old man in a much worse state than me right now.
“You can trust me,” he said, reaching for me.
“I don’t know you.”
“You will,” he said, which could’ve seemed creepy and pushy and threatening. But right then, not trusted by my parents, unwanted by Decker, it seemed like a promise. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
“Let’s see the hand,” he said.
I held out my right hand and uncurled my fingers, exposing a throbbing, ugly mess of red and purple.
Troy held my hand in both of his and ran his thumbs along the edge of the burn. “Second degree. Just barely. You’ll be fine. You’ve been through far worse, right?” He let go of me and ran the water in the sink. He plugged the bottom and let the water rise.
“Put your hand in here and let it soak for a while.” While I did that, he busied himself in the kitchen. “Thirsty? Hungry?” I shook my head. He pulled out a soda anyway and popped the lid. I took it in my good hand.
“I need your jacket. You reek of smoke.” I let him help me out of it, lifting my hand out of the water as he pulled off the other sleeve. He sprayed it with an aerosol can and hung it over the back of a chair.
He brought a dishrag over and pulled my arm out of the sink. He started dabbing at my hand gently. The throbbing had decreased, but it stung every time he touched me. Then Troy looked me in the eyes and leaned forward. He took my hair in his hand and brought it to his face. “Your hair is all smoky,” he said, very, very close.
I took a step back. “I was at a party. It’s okay.” If my parents asked, maybe I could say there was a bonfire or something.