Liam silenced him with a look and brought his lips down next to my ear. “Take Zu?”
I nodded, my fingers tapping his to show that I understood. I pushed myself up off the ground, feeling calmer now.
When I reached Zu, I held out my hand to her. She raised hers without looking up, blindly reaching for mine. I stared at the yellow glove in front of me, streaked with dirt and black grime, and, despite what had happened a few minutes before, pulled it right off her little fingers.
I couldn’t say why I had done it; maybe being so close to Liam and not losing control had made me stupidly brave, or maybe I was just sick of the reality that forced her into them. All I knew for sure was that if I never saw Zu wear those gloves again, it would be too soon.
Zu jerked when she felt the warm skin of my hand against hers, and tried to tug away. Her eyes went wide, but I couldn’t tell if it was from worry or wonder.
“Come on,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Girl time.”
Her face brightened, but she didn’t smile.
“Don’t go too far,” Liam called after us.
“Don’t go too far,” the other boys echoed, then burst out into laughter.
Zu’s nose wrinkled in disgust.
“I know what you mean,” I said, and took her as far away from them as I could.
For the first ten or so minutes we spent walking around the store, Zu kept turning to look at our linked hands, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Every now and then, some bin of unwanted DVDs or an aisle endcap of pointless knickknacks would catch her attention, but her dark eyes would always wander back to where our hands swung between us. We had just turned down one of many ravaged cleaning supply aisles when she gave my arm a tug.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, kicking aside a stray mop.
Zu pointed at the glove I was twirling around with my free hand.
I lifted our hands between us. “What’s so bad about this?”
She blew out the breath she had been holding, and it was evident I had missed the point. I was dragged all the way to the other end of the aisle, where she let go of my hand to snatch a white box from the shelf. Zu went to work tearing the box open, tossing aside the foam and plastic stuffing to get the old-fashioned silver toaster inside.
“I’m not sure we’re going to need that,” I started slowly.
She pinned me with a look that very clearly said, Quiet, please.
Zu tugged the other glove off her hand and spread all ten fingers out along either side of the appliance. After a moment, I saw her shut her dark eyes.
The metal piping that served as the toaster’s innards heated to a glowing red. A long black cord dangled near her feet, unplugged. The cheap little thing only lasted another minute before its insides started to melt together. I made her put it down at the first sign of smoke.
See? she seemed to be saying. Get it?
“But you can’t do that to me,” I said, reaching for her hand again. “You don’t have to worry about hurting me, because you never could.”
I know how it feels, is what I really should have been saying. I know what it’s like to be scared of what you can barely control.
I had forced myself to stop thinking about what I had done to that undercover PSF. I didn’t let myself wonder if I could do it again, let alone test it out. But how, I wondered, were either of us ever going to learn to control ourselves if we couldn’t practice? If we couldn’t stretch and test boundaries?
“Let’s see if we can find something useful,” I said, slipping my fingers around hers again. I waited until I felt her hand close against mine before leading her back down the aisle. “What do you think—”
I’m not even sure what I was about to ask her, but she wasn’t paying attention to me. Zu stopped so suddenly and gripped my hand so damn hard, that I stumbled back a few steps. My eyes followed the line of her outstretched arm to the upended clothing and shoe racks.
More specifically, to the lone hot pink dress dangling from an otherwise empty rack.
Zu took off at a run, blitzing down the aisles of extension cords and buckets. I tried to keep up with her, but it was like the wind had caught her heels and was propelling her forward. She stopped just short of the rack. I watched, fascinated, as one of her hands reached out to stroke the fabric, only to pull back at the last second.
“Beautiful,” I told her. The dress itself flared out at the waist, with a big ribbon bow at the place where the sleeveless top met the pink and white striped skirt. She looked like she wanted nothing more than to pull it down, hug it to her chest, and press her face against the satiny fabric.
I could think of about a thousand things I missed while I was at Thurmond, but dresses were not on that list. My dad’s favorite story to tell strangers and indulgent relatives was the day he and Mom tried to button me up into a blue one for his birthday party when I was three. Because the buttons were so small and impossible for me to reach, I shredded the fabric by hand, bit by gauzy bit. I spent the rest of the party proudly parading around in Batman underwear.
“Are you going to try it on?” I asked.
She looked back up at me and shook her head. Her hands dropped from where they were hovering over the plastic hanger’s shoulders, and it took me a moment to recognize what was happening.
Zu thought she didn’t deserve it. She thought it was too nice, too new, too pretty. I felt a sweltering hate rise in me, but I didn’t know where to direct it. Her parents, for sending her away? Her camp? The PSFs?
I pulled the dress off the silver rack with one hand and took Zu’s arm in the other. I knew she was looking at me again, her dark eyes wide with confusion, but instead of explaining—instead of trying to force her to understand the words I wanted to say—I led her over to the dressing rooms in the center of the clothing section, thrust the dress into her hands, and told her to try it on.
It was like tugging a boat in to dock on a thin line. The first few times I handed it to her, she would put it down and I’d have to pick it back up again. I don’t know if her desire finally won out, or if I’d managed to exhaust even her wariness, but by the time she appeared, peeking out from around her dressing room’s door, I was so relieved I almost cried.
“You look amazing.” I turned her back around, so she could see herself in the room’s tall mirror. When I finally coaxed her to look, I felt her shoulders jerk under my hands—saw her eyes go huge and bright, only to droop again a moment later. Her fingers began to pluck at the fabric. She was shaking her head, as if to say, No, no I can’t.
“Why not?” I asked, turning her so she was looking at me. “You like it, right?”
She didn’t look up, but I saw her nod.
“Then what’s the problem?” At that, I caught her sneak another look at herself in the corner of the mirror. Her hands were smoothing the fabric of the skirt, and she didn’t seem aware of it in the slightest.
“That’s right,” I said. “There is no problem. Let’s see what else we can find.”
After, she wanted to find something for me. Unsurprisingly, the adult section had been decimated by looters; my choices seemed limited to hunting gear and industrial jumpsuits. After several patient explanations about why I didn’t need the silky cornflower blue nightgown or the skirt with daisies on it, she—with a look of total and complete exasperation—accepted that I was only ever going to try on jeans and plain T-shirts.