“You thirsty?” she asked me, which meant we would discuss all of this later. “I’ll get you some water. Petey, keep an eye on my baby sister and don’t you let her go anywhere near that fire, all right?”
He nodded, and Ruby slipped away. There she was, crossing the gravel in boots that skimmed her shins, and then there she wasn’t, sundress swallowed by the night.
Just as I remembered her.
“I need to sit down,” I said.
Pete hopped to attention and led me over to a slope of gravel. Agreeing to take care of me wasn’t entirely selfless. I could see how he was counting on some reward Ruby would never be game to give him, picturing that reward as he helped me to the ground, rewinding and playing it back as he reached out to pat my head, caught in freeze-frame as he missed my head by a mile and clocked me in the chest instead.
There went his reward.
“Crap,” he said. “Did I punch you in the tit?”
He had, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge that. “Don’t worry about it,” I heard my mouth say. My eyes were still on the bonfire.
“You okay? You sure? You’re not hurt?” His voice was dripping sap and concern like he’d just run over my puppy, but this concern was really only for Ruby.
Ruby, who’d kill him dead if she thought he’d hurt me, no matter what history they shared. Ruby, who’d duct-tape him to a tree with his pants to his ankles and leave him there through the night to let the wood creatures at him. The raccoons and skunks, the black bears that climbed these mountains, the animals that came out only at night with their sharp claws and rabies-soaked teeth.
Pete must have known all that. But I bet he also figured if he could get me on his side, he’d have a real shot with Ruby. That’s how it used to be: The way to Ruby’s heart, they’d all assumed, was through her little sister—it’s how I got my very first iPod. But I never did put in a good word for any of her suitors. It wouldn’t have worked. Ruby’s heart had room inside for me only.
I realized Pete was watching me. “You look so much like her . . . with your hair like that,” he said. This was something he shouldn’t say, we both knew it, so he changed the subject, fast. “Jonah doesn’t deserve her, y’know? How’d he get so lucky?”
This was the first I’d heard of any Jonah. Apparently, my sister had a new boyfriend.
Pete kept talking, all dejected. “He just moves to town and gets my girl and—” He stopped short. “Don’t tell her I called her ‘my’ girl. I know she’s not.”
I shrugged. “She’s not anyone’s.”
Pete didn’t matter. My eyes kept going back to the fire—to the girl beside the fire—to London.
“You see her?” I asked him. Ruby wasn’t there to stop me. She’d walked away.
The fire itself was made of tree branches, built up to a pyramid with a hot burning center, arranged for inevitable collapse. A bunch of people hung around watching. I recognized some kids from when I last lived in town, the summer after eighth grade and before the start of high school.
Names came from under water, bobbing up one after the other: Damien something. Asha something. Vanessa something. Allison and Alison; Kate and Cate. And, of course, London Hayes.
My finger went to her, pointing so I didn’t have to let her name touch my tongue. “There,” I said, “there in the stripes.”
Her stripes were black-and-white, horizontal. Prison stripes.
He craned his neck to find them. “That chick London? Yeah . . . what about her?”
“You see her?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“You see her? Tell me you see her.”
“Dude, I said I see her. She’s right there.”