I walk beyond the orchard toward him, but the cord quickly grows taut. Warily, he edges out of the pines and runs from tree to tree until he’s not more than ten feet from me.
He sidles to the tree I’m behind, his face stretched in surprise. Bones protrude from his face. He’s been starving. His nose was broken and healed in an odd direction, and beneath one of his eyes is a persistent purple sickle of bruise. Over his shoulder is a burlap sack, and I can discern the shapes of pears inside. He must’ve been raiding the trees before we showed up.
“You’re alive?” I whisper, tears springing to my eyes. “I thought they killed you.”
His voice comes in an unused croak. “I thought the same of you.”
His hands are shuddering, and he presses the pads of his fingers over my cheeks.
“You’re really real?” I whisper.
“I don’t know anymore,” he says. “I’ve been lost for a long time.”
I can’t put my hand to his cheek, so I lean in and close my eyes and let my lips traverse the scars on his face, the warm breath sluicing from his nose, the exhale of relief at the touch of skin on his skin. My lips find his open lips and our mouths feel for each other frantically. Jude tastes unwashed and desperate.
“How are you alive?” I whisper.
He hangs his head into the bend of my neck, and I feel him shake his head. “I don’t know. I remember them coming at me, and after that nothing but darkness. And then, I don’t know what else to call it . . . an angel, a real one with a halo made of orange light and blond hair.”
“Blond hair?” I ask. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. She dragged me away. And when I woke, I was way out in the forest. I could never’ve gotten there on my own. I woke up ’cause there was fire in air. It was blowing away in the opposite direction, but I could smell the smoke. I got up and started walking and found a cave. That’s where I been.”
“Are you hurt bad?” I ask.
“Only from not knowing where you were,” he says, though I can tell by the sunken-looking bone of his eye, the way he holds his chest inward, that that’s not true.
“Why don’t you come into the city?” I ask. “You could go to a hospital.”
His forehead crinkles. “That place is exactly as evil as I thought. I’ve seen it, from the hills. You seen the cars? You smelled the air down there? It’s poisonous. You heard their loudness? And seen the colors of their clothes?”
“Like this?” I ask, toeing my jumpsuit with a boot.
“You can’t help that.” He repositions his legs and winces painfully, his hand wrapping around his middle.
“Jude, you need a doctor,” I say.
“I done fine.”
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing I cain’t handle.”
“All right, ladies!” Officer Prosser yells from the area of the bus. “Time to pack it in!”
I dart my eyes behind me, through the tall grass. Angel is stepping down out of her tree. She looks over her shoulder, and I know she’s seen us. She brings her lips inside her mouth and turns to walk back to the road.
“I gotta go,” I whisper.
“Go?” Jude asks. “You’re coming with me.”
“Come with you?” I ask.
“I bet I can pop that lock open with my crowbar.”
He yanks on the lock hanging from the belt and pulls me forward a step, rummaging in his burlap sack.
“Jude,” I say. “Wait.”
“What?”
“I—I don’t know if I can go with you.”
The words ring out in the still air, and the hurt in his face strikes me right in my chest.
“What d’you mean?” he asks. “I gotta get you outta here.”
But I’ll miss reading class, I almost say. I shake my head. “I’m in juvie for a reason, Jude. I gotta stick this out. I—I just need a little time.”
“I don’t unnerstand,” he says. “The cave I told you about, it’s—Minnow, it’s nice there. Safe. Good stream not far. We could live there, make a life together.”
“A cave?” I ask. “Jude, I don’t think I can live in a place like that. And neither should you.”
“But, look where you been,” he responds. “Wouldn’t a cave be better than that?”
“Better than prison?” I ask.
“We could be happy there.”
“We’d be all alone.”
“We’d be together,” he insists.
“That’s not enough,” I say. And it’s not. It’s really not.
His face falls. And I finally hear it, the small voice in my mind that I never let speak until now, a voice that asks if you can grow out of people the way you can grow out of tree houses.
“I know it’s hard to understand, Jude, but I can’t go with you right now. I can’t run away from this.”
“You just got free of one prison, and you choose another one?”
“It ain’t that simple, Jude.”
“Minnow Bly!” I can hear Officer Prosser yell from beyond the trees. The cord around my waist tugs. I stumble backward.
I turn to Jude. “I—I gotta go now.” Tears brim in my eyes.