“Clare. She saw the bruises on you. She said it was all the time, toward the end.”
“I remember you.” I squint at him in amazement. “I remember her.” “I remember the day she took you. I’ll never forget that day. My mom had no idea. She said it was like any other day. Your mom picked you up from our house, but then you both disappeared. My mom followed your story through the newspaper, and your dad even went on the news a few times.”
“Ryan! Joelle and Carey are here!”
Climbing trees, becoming the leaves.
Offering me half of a perfectly split cherry Popsicle.
Wrapped in the sun like a giant blanket, my golden friendship.
Swinging to the moon. Gone too soon.
“And you thought I was some random nice guy who liked your face,” he says with a shoulder bump.
I just stare at him.
He rode between the barley-sheaves
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
“I remember. I can’t believe I remember.”
“Your mom used to read that crazy poem to us. About that lady in the boat floating down the lake.”
“ ‘The Lady of Shalott.’ It’s by Tennyson,” I say. Only, I’d thought it was mine.
He smiles, and it’s the boy smiling, the boy from before the woods.
“Right. It used to scare the bejeezus out of me.”
“Because she dies.”
“Right.” He stares at me, relief softening his features. “I thought you’d died. When no one could find you.”
“And then you found me. That first day at school.”
“Guilty as charged,” he says. “I saw your transfer records in the office one morning. At first, I couldn’t figure out why you had your mom’s last name, and not your dad’s. But then I figured out you didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I wanted to, but when you didn’t remember me . . . I don’t know. I thought for sure you’d remember me.”
I want to give him a gift, too. So he knows I understand.
“You are nothing like your father, Ryan. I remember him, too.”
I think of Mama. I know how much that matters.
“Thankfully. But the point is, everyone has a past, CC. Everyone has skeletons in the closet.”
“ ‘Skeletons in the closet’?”
“Things they want to forget. Things they’d rather keep hidden.”
He pulls me close and I let him, his body as sheltering as the hundred-year hickory that shaded our picnic table.
“Does Delaney know what happened to you? That it was a kidnapping?”
“Melissa says she grew up dealing with the fallout.”
“It doesn’t seem like she’s ever told anyone.”
“She’s has her reasons, I reckon.”
I follow his gaze to the ceiling, the middle carved out and replaced with a large glass dome. Stars in the house.
If I try real hard, I can imagine the sky is the Obed sky, virgin-pure and safe as a baby’s suck. The stars chirp in Morse code dots and dashes, just enough to keep me lookin’, and Jenessa, sleepin’.
“So, you’re supposed to forgive me now, and peck me one right here,” he says, pointing at his cheek.
He leans down as I stretch toward him, but before he turns his head, I kiss his lips. I, The Carey I Already Am. When I don’t reconsider, he kisses me back, his lips soft as gosling fuzz. I press my body closer in the places that count, and he puts his other arm around me. I lean into him as the music crashes and roils. I find his tongue, and set us both on fire.
And then he pulls back. Like he knows about the white-star night and the men in the woods, and doesn’t want me anymore.
Looking through the throng, I see Pixie eyeing me, her mouth round and her eyes dancing.
“No breakin and enterin’,” Mama says, cockin’ her head toward my crotch and winkin’.
This man is thinner. Twitchy. I don’t like his hands. His nails are dirty. I watch as he crosses Mama’s palm with gold: a fifty-dollar bill.
As if it’s already pourin’ down my throat, I retch, then swallow it back down.
“Mama, please. I don’t want to do this.”
“Do you want me to wake up Jenessa, then?”
I tremble, my legs wobbly. “No, Mama.”
“Then get goin, girl.”
“Carey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Ryan steps back, only a few steps, but it feels like miles. My eyes fill with tears despite my best efforts.
“Why? Because of my past? Because I’m fourteen? I’m not a little girl, Ryan.”
He pants, working on slowing down his breathing.
“You’re definitely not a little girl. But you have a lot going on. It might not be the best time for us to be—”
I reach out, take his hand, and put it between my legs.
“Carey!” He pulls away, fast, like he’s touched a hot coal. I stare him down. That’s what men like. But what I see is shock. Disgust.
I make my way down the wall, heading in the direction I’d been going before he found me.
“Carey!”