And the Yellows were on us. The guys held my arms and I couldn’t move. Buttercup and Zoe went for Wink, and she didn’t budge, didn’t even flinch. Just stood there, looking peaceful. Almost like she’d been expecting this all along, and was glad to get it over with.
The non-Yellows gathered around. Watching. Waiting to see what Poppy would do next. Tonisha and Guillermo and Finn and Della and Sung. Rich shiny hair. Rich shiny clothes. Rich shiny faces.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t, Poppy. Please.” I didn’t even try to sound like my brother this time.
But her arms shot out and grabbed the edge of Wink’s green dress, and yanked it up.
Wink’s skinny white legs, red socks to her knobby knees.
Wink’s underwear. White, with little unicorns on them.
Just as Poppy had predicted.
Poppy pointed. “See?” she said.
And laughed.
And laughed.
LEAF GRADUATED AND left. I was sixteen and I wasn’t sure I had a heart, until it fucking broke in two, ripped shreds and veins and blood everywhere. He didn’t even tell me where he went, just up and off and I even saw him the day after graduation, standing on the road at the end of my street, waiting for the bus, the sun setting behind him, green duffel bag over his shoulder. I would have thought he did it on purpose, caught the bus where I was bound to see him, except that would have meant Leaf thought about me, and I knew he didn’t.
He gave me a nod as he climbed the steps, that’s it, like I was a fucking postman or a stranger in the street. I tried to reach him, ran all the way, I was as good at running as I was at everything else. I tore, strained, but the doors shut, and the bus pulled away, and that was the last time I saw him.
I’d sworn that I’d never let a boy steal me, steal my heart, my mind, any single part of me. I’d sworn it over and over since I was old enough to know the difference.
But my knees hit the pavement with a crack anyway, and I lost it, I totally lost it, one second, two seconds, head hanging, eyes gushing, but people could see, they might be watching. I got back up, and left two bloody scrapes on the sidewalk where my kneecaps had been.
I thought about finding Zoe and Buttercup and spilling my guts and telling them my secrets. I could see them in my head, black dresses and striped socks, patting my shoulders and graciously tolerating my new vulnerability while losing respect for me with every tear that slid down my face.
I went over to the Hunt house instead and lost my virginity to Midnight.
I BARELY EVEN noticed when the Wolf did what she did at the Roman Luck house. My head was all caught up in the unforgivables, who were bothering me, even with the sugar, so I’d started thinking up a plan to get rid of them for good.
I decided to show Midnight the hayloft. The hayloft is where events happen and plots unfold and I wanted events to happen and plots to unfold.
WINK DIDN’T CRY or anything. I don’t know why I thought she would. The Bells never cried. That’s one of the reasons they were impossible to bully.
She was quiet as I walked her back home, but then, she’d been pretty quiet the whole night. And I didn’t know her well enough to know if that’s how she usually was anyway. She didn’t talk in school, but neither did I, and it didn’t prove a thing.
“Do you want to see the hayloft, Midnight?”
We stepped out of the trees and back onto her farm. Two of the dogs got up from where they were sleeping in the long grass near the chicken coop. They shook themselves and came over to greet us, soft, warm tongues on my cold hands.
“Yes I do, Wink.”
And she smiled, lips parting slightly, eyes bright. Just like that. Like she’d already forgotten that her dress had been pulled up and her unicorn underwear seen by a dozen kids from school.
How did she do it? How did she not care?
I was in awe of her, all of a sudden.
I used to be in awe of Poppy. All those years ago, laughing at her blood-dripping knees at the edge of my driveway, her bicycle in a heap beside her.
That’s how I used to be.
Wink’s farmhouse was dark and I figured it must be around eleven. The lights were still on in my house across the road, though, which was typical. Dad often read and worked until deep into the night. We were both night owls. Mom and Alabama were morning people.
I walked over to the ladder I’d seen Wink on earlier. I put my hand on a rung, and started climbing. I’d never been a guy for heights—that was my brother, who used to go cliff-jumping at the alpine lake near Kill Devil Peak. But I’d never seen the point of risking your life for one good fall.
Up and up. My hands were sweaty and my right palm slipped. I looked down at Wink’s red head, coming up beneath me, and felt all right again. I got to the top of the ladder and put one knee in the square opening, and then the other, and I was inside the hayloft.