“You are a dumb, dumb shit, Nate Winters.”
When he whipped around, they were practically nose to nose. Bridget could see the faint sweat curling the hair on his neck. The way his pupils were dilated. The quiver in his chin.
“Jesus Christ, Bridget. You gave me a heart attack.”
“You should be so goddamn lucky. What did I just see? With my own eyes, please Lord, tell me I just didn’t see what I think I did.” Bridget clenched her fists, her nails cutting into the flesh on her palms.
“She kissed me. I stopped her. She ran away. It was nothing.”
“Bless your heart.” She wanted to slap him, she really, really did. He took a step backward like he sensed it. He’d never seen Bridget mad, not at him anyway.
She’d been plenty mad in her life, especially at Holden. Years ago, Bridget threw the biggest temper tantrum of her adult life. Mama would have been proud. They’d all been drinking. Playing cards. The one and only time Bridget had ever seen Holden even look at another woman. Nate had invited another teacher, Carla something, a substitute gym teacher, as tight and toned as Bridget was soft curves. From the moment she got to the Winters’, she set her eye on Holden, touching his arm, laughing at his jokes. Bridget could see it in his eyes, he was taken with her. Charmed the pants off him, or at least almost. They played euchre, a game Bridget mostly stunk at, having never heard of it, so she sat and watched, at first curious about this new Holden, the one who noticed women and was charmed by them. It was almost a turn-on. Until he stopped looking at Bridget entirely, didn’t even notice when she went a whole hour without saying a word. When Carla left, with a sweet little waggle of her pin-painted fingertips, Bridget lost her shit and Holden had the nerve to laugh. He laughed at her. In front of their friends. Bridget left him there, got into the car, and drove home. The next morning, early, before school, he showed up with his tail between his legs. She let him simmer for a day before she forgave him.
So Nate had seen Bridget mad. But never at him.
Nate had pulled her into his classroom, closed the door so the latch rested against the doorframe, not fully shut. He sat backward on a chair, his thumbs driving into his eye sockets. Bridget stood in front of him, her arms crossed. Waiting. “I’ve been helping her, Bridget. Her dad is MIA, her brother is abusive. He hits her. Maybe worse. She’s cagey about it.” He leaned forward, pushed his palms into his knees. He looked out the window, his breath puffing out. “I don’t know what’s true anymore, but I think she’s being bullied pretty badly.”
“Bullied? Lucia? She’s more likely to be the bully, Nate.” Bridget saw Lenny, had seen her house, the filth she lived in. Still, at school, she remained untouchable. Kids had whispered for years about her being a witch, her sharp tongue knowing instinctively the weakest points of her classmates. “If she says she’s being bullied at school, I think she’s pulling one over on you.”
“Not just at school, Bridge. Look, do you know what trichotillomania is?”
“No.”
“I didn’t, either. She pulls out her hair.” Nate tugged on the end of his blond curls to demonstrate.
“Where? It looked fine to me just now.” Bridget was trying to be sensitive, but come on.
“Underneath. If you look underneath, it’s all scabs and bald spots. She was showing me just now. That’s what you saw.”
“I call bullshit. I saw her kiss you.” Bridget wasn’t an idiot. That smile, so coy, so chilling. Those big red lips stretched across bright white teeth.
“She did, I’m not denying that. She had her head turned like this.” Nate stood up, took his thumb under Bridget’s chin, turned her head, just so. Bridget could feel his breath on her neck. The warmth from his body. He lifted up her hair, her neck cool and damp. When he sat again, in the chair one seat closer to her, he let her hair fall back down against her back. When Bridget turned her head, they were eye level. “She was showing me her hair, what she’s doing to herself. Then she kissed me.”
“What did you do?” Bridget breathed out.
“I stopped her. Of course I did.” Nate stood up, put his hands on Bridget’s shoulders. “She’s confused, that’s all. Don’t make it worse by making this a thing. I’m the only person on earth being nice to her right now. I was comforting her and she got confused.”
“Nate! This is a thing, whether you want it to be or not. You could lose your job!” She shimmied away from his grasp. “Mt. Oanoke would fry you in a second. These people . . .” She let her voice drop. These people were Nate’s people. Bridget and Alecia were outsiders. City folk, southern folk, same difference. Not us folk. Nate, though, he was us folk.
“Trust me; do you trust me?” His face looked so earnest Bridget wanted to cry.
Nate, the Boy Scout, born and bred in the country, his face red and corn-fed round, those bright, long-lashed eyes. He grew up here, the woods hiding a multitude of teenage indiscretions and later, adult ones. His na?veté and arrogance were stunning. Sometimes Bridget thought that the whispers of idle gossip actually powered the town. They’d thrill in stringing up one of their own, maybe even more than an outsider. So much further to fall.
When Bridget didn’t answer, Nate continued. “She asked me not to tell anyone this. She doesn’t have anyone else.”
“She has Taylor.” Bridget said, then stopped. Maybe, maybe not.
“Do you know they call her a witch?” Nate pressed.
“I’ve heard that for years now. Since she came in as a freshman. It’s the hair, her nastiness.” Bridget sighed. She could have done more to stop it. It was never rampant, just whisperings.
Josh Tempest had cackled at her once in class and Lucia whipped around and barked at him like a dog. At the time, Bridget hadn’t known what to make of the exchange, but later, she heard in the faculty room that Josh had been caught by Kelsey Minnow’s father over the weekend in a particularly damning sex act, and the barking then made sense. Bridget chalked it all up to the language teenagers spoke and she only sometimes understood and promptly dismissed it. If she was being honest, the witch thing had been around for a while. Lucia didn’t seem especially bothered by any of it. Sometimes, if you asked Bridget, Lucia seemed to use it to her advantage. She liked her own edges sharp.
“You remember what you told me about the birds, right?” Nate asked.
“Yes.” Bridget pressed her fingertips into her thighs, an exasperated sigh in her throat. “It’s nonsense, really. I mean, how many dead animals do you see? Birds that fall out of nests, squirrels on the side of the road. Deer, for goodness’ sake. I don’t take it as an omen.” It was Pennsylvania, deer were more than abundant—they were a destructive force. “You hardly take note of it. It just is.”
“I hear you. But listen, a couple years ago, she left one. On Andrew Evans’s doorstep.”