He was pressing the sleeve of his shirt to his nose, and when he heard this, I saw his face contort. He seemed confused, as if the blows had stunned him.
When he let go of the shirt, a thin line of blood still ran out of one nostril, and he tilted his head back, looking at me out of the corner of one eye.
“Whatever traps you cut aren’t mine,” he said. His hand touched the side of his ribs. He winced and swayed on his feet.
“These are my waters. And I know every buoy in them. So you can deny it all you want. Be a man and own up to it,” I said.
“A man like you? You get Boon to fight your fights or you wait until I’m shitfaced.” He leaned against the piling for support, slack jawed and blinking furiously, throwing his head back now and then to staunch the blood dripping from his nose.
“You came on my boat once without an invitation. Now you know what happens if you do it again.”
“You got a screw loose, Kelly. I heard about that kid of yours. That baby. I didn’t know about that when I came to your house. Peggy told me after. And you know what? I decided to not mess with you. Let you have my water. Figured, you know, you probably got enough on your plate.”
“Leave,” I said, pointing to the parking lot with the knife.
“That’s why I brought up your wife. How pretty she is. That’s all I was trying to say. That you still got a lot of good stuff. But I can’t get it out of my mouth before you haul off and break my nose. Probably a rib too.”
The headlights from the parking lot flashed again, and he backed up, not taking his eyes off me.
“You know what, Kelly? You deserve everything that’s coming to you.”
He disappeared into the dark, and a few minutes later, I heard tires crunching against the gravel up above.
There was a large circle of blood on the deck. I put the knife back in the sheath and felt my head spin. I heard the crunch when my hand hit his face. I stumbled to the side of the boat, and leaned over, my stomach heaving, the brown liquid burning as it came up and hit the water with a splash. I grabbed a rag and wiped my mouth. Then I leaned over, dipped it in the ocean, and pressed it against my knuckle, expecting the salt to light the gash on fire.
But I didn’t even feel it, just felt the pounding in my head. The way it seemed to pulse even with my heartbeat.
?18
Kat
The new thing that happened this summer was Jess got a boyfriend. She didn’t think I knew, but I did. And she was a traitor. This she did know, because I whispered it to her every time she got close to me. This morning she got the milk out of the fridge for her cereal, and when she sat next to me, I said it to her, long and drawn out, traaiiittoooor, with a dip in my voice at the end for what my teacher, Mrs. Whitley, calls emphasis.
Jess looked up at me from her cereal, so I knew she heard me. She waited until Mom left the room to hiss at me.
“What are you whispering?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“That’s the point. I don’t know.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying to me? That I’m a liar?”
“No. That goes without saying. What I’ve been whispering is that you’re a traitor.” I rolled my eyes. Sometimes she was so dense.
She drank the milk out of the bottom of her cereal bowl, took it to the sink, and walked out of the room.
I followed.
“You said you’d tell me what happened at Smelliot’s house, and you didn’t. So you are a liar,” I said to her back.
She turned and folded her arms across her chest. “I did tell you what happened. Which was nothing. I saw the kid you were talking about, but that’s it. I don’t know why he told you Mom and Dad were getting divorced. Case closed.”
“Case not closed. You left out that you met his brother. And you also didn’t mention that he’s your boyfriend. Friend of the enemy. So that makes you a liar and a traitor.”
Jess walked past me and shut the bedroom door. When she turned around, her face was pink, and she had a crazy look in her eye.
“Who told you all of this, Kat?” she asked.
“Told me what?”
“About Alex. That he was my boyfriend?”
“No one you know.” I hated that she never told me anything. I told her everything.
“Kat. Cut it out. Tell me how you know about Alex.”
“So he is your boyfriend,” I said, pleased that I had the right information.
“First, he is not. And second, tell me what you know about it.”
I looked out the window, yawned, like this was all very boring. See how she liked having secrets kept from her.
But I also wanted to know about this Alex person. And I could tell by the way she was staring at me that whoever he was, whether she called him her boyfriend or not, he mattered to her.
“You promise to never not tell me something again?” I asked, hoping this moment would at least buy me something in the future.
“No.” She scowled at me. “Why don’t you promise to not be so nosy?”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Well, my nosiness just so happens to know something that you don’t about your boyfriend. Namely, that you may not be his only girlfriend.”
That did it. If I thought she had a crazy look before, this made her even crazier. What Boon called batshit. She grabbed my forearm and yanked me into her bedroom and slammed the door behind us, locking us in.
She led me over to the chair and sat me down and leaned over me, her arms on either side of my chair.
“Talk,” she said, her eyes drilling a hole into my face.
“Jeez, relax, will you?” I pushed the chair back, rolling on the wheels, but she grabbed my arms and pulled me back to her.
“Now,” she growled at me.
Jess had the brownest eyes, and long lashes, like Mom. Dad always said they were like a pair of does, the two of them. Now her eyes were mean looking. I brought my knees up to my chest and pressed my face into them. What started as me teasing her had turned somehow, and I was sorry I’d brought it up at all. I pushed her hands away.
“Kat,” Jess said, softer now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull you.” I felt her hand on the back of my head, her fingers patting my hair.
“I know you were just fooling around. But it’s important to me. How about this?” she said, tugging my hair playfully where her fingers intertwined in the back of my head so my face came off my knees. She was calmer now. “You tell me everything you know, and I’ll tell you everything I know. Deal?”
“Everything?” I asked. She nodded, but it was a side-to-side movement that let me know she was lying. But it was something. Something was better than nothing.
“Okay,” I agreed, hopping off the chair. “I was at camp, and the counselors always make us have snack time all together on the picnic tables. And they usually sit under the big willow tree—you know the one near the parking lot.” I glanced at her to make sure she knew the tree, and she nodded.
“But I won first place in the relay race, and the prize was that I could choose where to sit and have ice cream. So I chose to sit with the counselors under the tree because they’re always giggling and fooling around, and I always wonder what they’re talking about.”