“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.” I hold the paper behind my back, hoping he’ll just drop it.
Jordan’s face looks like a summer storm heading over the horizon, and I know immediately that hiding this from him isn’t an option anymore.
“Was that drawing of—give it to me.” His calm voice is a startling contrast to his angry expression.
I groan. “It’s fine. This really isn’t a big deal.” I bring the paper forward and try to smooth it out. He stands up from his swing and I hold it out where we can both see. I look again at the crude sketches of Daddy in the electric chair and me hanging from a noose. Seeing them in the fading evening light sends a fresh chill through me. Jordan holds entirely still for several seconds.
“Riley?” Jordan hasn’t lifted his eyes yet. He sounds horrified. “You’ve received more than one note like this?”
I crumple the drawing a bit and drop it onto the ground. “Yes. I’ve gotten them off and on for years. At school in my locker, sometimes on the front porch, but this one was left on my car. People are stupid sometimes. It’s just something I’ve had to get used to. Don’t worry about it.”
By the time I finish, the storm in his expression has turned into a full-blown hurricane.
“This isn’t nothing, Riley. Who would draw something like this? Doesn’t having this kind of hostility all around you scare you? It damn well scares me. Why didn’t you tell me?” His stare borders on violence. “I thought you trusted me. I thought we were…”
His words hang on the air, heavy and dense with implications. They make me want to beg him to finish his thought. What did he think we were? What could we even have the potential to be, considering our fathers, considering their history?
But he won’t finish. He’s waiting for an answer from me. And I honestly have none.
“Yes, it’s scary. It’s terrifying, but if I let myself be scared by every idiot in this city who has a paper and a pencil, I’d never sleep.” My voice shakes now that I allow myself to say these words out loud. I haven’t let messages like this scare me in a while, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still worry that next time it won’t be just a threat in a drawing or on a note.
The anger in his face turns to fear, and then I see sadness that hurts me deeper than I knew it could. “Do you still not trust me? After everything?”
I sit back on my swing and sigh. “Maybe I should’ve told you, but what good would it do? Like I said, this isn’t a new development, and I don’t want us to get distracted. We have twelve days left. We’re running out of time, Jordan.” My voice has a distinct note of panic to it at the end that seems to reach through his emotions. He watches me with a silent frown as I twist in my swing until I’m fidgeting and just wishing that he would speak.
Eventually, I wrap my arms across my stomach, trying to protect myself from his disapproval, which stings worse than it should. “This is too important to me; you know that.”
“You are too important to me! You’re more important than a case or a truth or anything else!” He turns away from my shocked expression, leaving me trying to get my heart to stop pounding in my ears. Jordan picks up the paper and scans it again before shoving it in his pocket. He turns to face me, then steps over, lifts my hands off the chains, and pulls me to my feet until I’m standing in front of him.
“Trust me, Riley.” The worry I see in his eyes is plain. The hurt he’s feeling is fresh.
“I do trust you—” I begin, wanting to reassure him, but he stops me.
He grabs my hand and pulls it in against his chest, clasping it tight between both of his. His eyes plead with me to understand what he’s saying. “Believe me that I won’t hurt you. I won’t disappear. I’m not going anywhere.”
The heartbeat that I feel beneath my knuckles is as steady and earnest as Jordan’s voice. I want to believe him. I want all of his words to be true, but saying that it is true, saying that I do believe him, leaves me open and vulnerable in a way that terrifies me. Only one thought keeps me from saying what he wants me to say.
Not everyone chooses to leave me, but they still do.