20
REID
Dori is as quiet on the drive back to the dorm as she was on the drive into the city two nights ago. I slide into a rare open parking spot and offer to walk her in, but she has that exam to study for, and if I get out of this car, there’s the possibility I’ll be recognized – and she clearly doesn’t need to deal with that right now.
We angle over the centre console to kiss goodbye until I murmur, ‘Screw this,’ slide my seat back as far as it will go and pull her into my lap. ‘Mmm. Better.’ Pushing my hand into her hair, I draw her mouth to mine and kiss her deeply, every slide of my tongue against hers, every shared caress a declaration of all she means to me.
Inhaling shakily, she rests her head against my shoulder. ‘You didn’t exactly encourage a lot of study time this weekend, you know.’ Her hand lies over my heart.
‘Well, I got plenty of study time. I’m pretty sure I could pick you out of a line-up of only belly buttons or kneecaps or pinkie toes now … let alone the parts I committed to memory ages ago. For instance – I could have identified you by those delicious lips two days after meeting you.’
She blinks up at me and tilts her head back on my arm. ‘But you didn’t kiss me until, you know, the pink closet.’
I fix her with a suggestive look. ‘I remember – but those lips were one of the first things I noticed about you. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, on or off site. I kissed you a hundred times in my imagination, and once I’d actually kissed you, all I could think about was doing it again.’ I run the pad of my thumb across her plump lower lip, recalling all the wretched time I spent trying to move on, trying to forget her. It had taken no more than two seconds of seeing her face again to realize that I hadn’t forgotten a damned thing.
I wish I could read her mind. She’s a pensive, deep-thinking girl, and it’s not unusual for her to stare into space, lost in her thoughts. Normally, I’m fascinated when she does this – the shifting emotions crossing her face, marked by faint smiles, frowns or grimaces. That’s not how I feel now, when I can’t escape the uneasy awareness that her contemplations concern me.
‘What are you thinking about?’
She blinks distractedly, and then stares up at me with eyes so dark and fathomless that I’m sure I’ll never know all the mysteries behind them. Even if I can’t follow her when she withdraws inside herself like this, I want her to know that I’ll always be there to pull her back to solid ground before she goes under. That I won’t let go.
‘I don’t want to say goodbye,’ she says, her eyes shining.
‘Then don’t say it,’ I say, ignoring the subtle premonition in her words. Ignoring the fact that she’s not asked a single question about River, or Brooke, or the adoption. Ignoring my own hunger to hear her tell me, just once, that she loves me.
RIVER
Wendy told me I might get a new mama. That I might go live with her.
The social lady came to talk to me about it – her name is Kris. She comes to talk to me sometimes. About Mama. Or about Wendy. Or about how I feel or what I think when I hide food. She said that I was just going to talk to the lady who might want to be my mama (except Kris said mother, not mama). Then she said, ‘Can you draw me a picture about that?’
That’s what they always want me to do. Draw a picture.
I don’t want a new mama. I want to stay here with Wendy, and I wish Sean would find a new mama instead. But I don’t know how to draw that.