I didn’t look at her. I tried to concentrate on the math problem in front of me. But the lines and numbers seemed to wobble and blur.
“Anyway, Peter showed himself a real leader,” Rose went on. “Like a warrior-prince, you know? His skin was smeared all over with blood and sweat—you just wanted to lick him. And he deserved something—I mean, for taking care of that little creep Roy. So I let him have me. To the victor go the spoils, right? That’s me—I’m the spoils.”
I stood up from my desk so suddenly that I knocked my book and worksheet and pencil to the floor. Mr. Goodwin looked at me curiously. I picked up my things and put them on the desk, then walked quickly out of the room, down the hall, and into the girls’ bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror, my diminutive, ugly little self, and it wasn’t until I could see my eyes filling up with tears that I knew I was going to cry. So I shut myself in a stall and unrolled thick wads of toilet paper to cry into. I made no sound. I’m a silent crier when I wish to be.
When I was done, I splashed cold water on my face and waited for the redness to lessen. I was in the bathroom so long that the end-of-period bell rang before I got back to the classroom. When I went in to collect my things, Mr. Goodwin asked me if everything was all right.
I told him yes, everything was fine.
Then, on an impulse, I added:
“I was cutting class.”
Mr. Goodwin gave me a confused smile, as though he didn’t understand the joke. Then he just shrugged it off.
“Are you coming to math clinic today? A lot of kids could really use your help.”
*
Later, when Peter came to my house to study, I remained conspicuously silent about his injuries. At first he tried to hide them or distract me with questions from the textbook. But the more time passed without my asking about it, the more indignant he became.
Finally he said, “Aren’t you going to ask what happened to me?”
I shrugged.
“I figure it happened when you were breaching last night.”
“But don’t you want to ask how? Don’t you want to know if I’m all right?”
“Did you have sex with Rose Lincoln?”
His face changed. Whatever ire he had been fostering toward me was suddenly gone—replaced by twitchy panic.
“What?” he said lamely.
“You had sex with her.”
“Who said that?”
“She did.”
“Rose lies. She’s lying.”
“I don’t think she is.”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes searched the room. He was in a panic about being caught. I hated him for making me feel sorry for him. He reached out to me, and I pulled myself back so violently that I banged my shoulder against one of my shelves and a pile of books came tumbling down. I was embarrassed and angry.
“Why did you do it?” I said.
“I didn’t—”
“You did. I know what breachers do. They run in the woods. They beat one another up. They have sex together. Isn’t that what happens?”
“Lumen—”
“I thought you liked me.”
“I do. So much you don’t even know.”
“That’s not what liking looks like.”
“You don’t understand. When you’re out there…you don’t—”
“Yeah, I know. I got it. I’m a girl. I’m a nice girl. I’m the opposite of Rose Lincoln. She’s the kind of girl you have sex with, and I’m the kind of girl you do math problems with.”
“Stop it. It’s not—”
“Yes, it is. I know it is. You’re a sweetheart with me. So kind, so gentlemanly.” I was crying by now. I knew because I could feel the tears on my cheeks. And I was embarrassed, which made the tears come even faster. “I’m like the thing you worship. The thing you put on a shelf and dust every week. Don’t take Lumen down from her shelf—you’re liable to get your fingerprints all over her. Let’s keep her from anything ugly. The ugly’s just for grown-ups. She can’t handle the ugly—”
“Stop!”
He said it loud, loud enough to jar everything into sudden silence. My father was downstairs, and I was afraid he’d heard it. I didn’t like the idea of dragging him into my pathetic little-girl world. I listened for a few moments to the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. Then I looked to the window. It was the third and final night of Hollow Moon.
“You better go,” I said, sniffling and wiping the tears from my face with my palms. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“I’m going,” he said. “But you should know—you’re better than me. You’re better than all of us.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be better,” I said. “Get out. Just get out. You don’t want to be a danger to me.”
*
That night I stuffed cotton balls in my ears and pulled the blankets over my head. I went to beautiful places in my head. I was part of everything I touched, and the world was glad to have me on its surface. I imagined myself on top of a mountain in Switzerland. I looked out over the wide valleys and saw no towns and no roads and no travelers. There was no one around to be surprised or disappointed about what I was or what I was not.
I was alone and unfearful.
*
In the morning, as my father and I sat at the kitchen table—he reading the paper and stirring his coffee, I ignoring my unappetizing bowl of whole-grain cereal—I asked him what it was like to go breach.
“It’s not something for you to worry about,” he said, not looking up from his newspaper.
“You mean because it won’t happen to me?”
I forget where it started, this mutual belief that I was unbreachable. Was it something he told me as a child? Or was it something I suggested to him that he picked up on? We had lived so long, he and I, with the consensual reluctance to give up the fancies of childhood—and now I didn’t know if this was one of them. Simply put, we did not talk about such things.
“I mean,” he said, “because it’s not something to worry about. Like the weather. It’s going to be what it’s going to be, whether you fret about it or not.”
I knew this to be true, but I wanted more information.