“Not out here.” I push the screen open wider, but he stays stock-still. “Come in.” I’m being paranoid, but I can’t help it. Finally, Everett heaves himself off the doorframe and follows me inside.
I lead him to my small kitchen with its open window, twilight breeze still blowing the curtains. Just like my run-down Datsun, which softhearted Old Man Jonas gifted me out of pity when I turned eighteen and couldn’t afford anything else, everything in this house is in need of repair. It’s a tiny cottage far from town, right on the edge where the woods turn thick, the only house for miles. I have to collect my mail at the post office because Mr. Broussard, the mailman, won’t come out here. Too alone, he says, too near the dark woods. But I rent this house with my own money and live here by myself. Those are things to cherish.
Everett scans as he walks. “You got new curtains.”
Though we have far more pressing topics to discuss, the small talk is a relief. A temporary stay from the guillotine drop of my news. “The old ones tore. I sewed those myself.”
He raises his eyebrows. “New books?”
“So many.”Two years’ worth, since you didn’t come.I nod toward the bookshelf. “A ton you’ll love.”
We move into my living room, with the old floral couch I found at a garage sale and my towering bookcase. Everett has curled on that couch a thousand times, reading beside me late into the night. But now he keeps his distance, resting his hand on the spine of the couch, oddly formal. When he looks at me, I see he’s waiting.
So I tell him everything: the trapper, the skull, the blunt-force trauma. The fact that it’s only a matter of time before they put the pieces together and say Renard’s name out loud. I didn’t think Everett’s face could grow any paler, but by the time I’m finished, it’s managed.
He swallows. “I know this seems bad, Ruth, but we’ll think of a plan. There has to be something.”
For some reason, it’s Everett’s hope that breaks me. For the first time since hearing the news, my eyes sting hot with tears. “We’re going to get caught. We’re going to be arrested and spend the rest of our lives in prison, unless they electrocute us. Either way, we’re going to burn in Hell. There’s no getting around it.”
He shakes his head, dark hair tumbling. “It was self-defense. Renard was hurting you, and he was going to kill me. We did it to save our lives.”
“But we covered it up. We thought they’d never find him, but theydid. And now the whole town’s talking. Eventually someone’s going to remember some detail that will lead to us. There’s nothing we can do.”
“There’s always something we can do. I promise, I’ll figure it out.” Everett stops, pressing his palms to his head. “I just…can’t think straight right now. The smell is driving me crazy. Ruth, tell me why your house smells like a man before I go insane.”
A startled laugh breaks from me. Of all the things to be thinking about right now. Besides, it’s been days since Barry was here, and I can’t smell a trace of him. Everett’s nose is even better than I remembered. I look athim, so rattled, and feel a surge of anger. If anyone owes anyone answers, it’s Everett owing me.
“After all this time,that’swhere you want to start?”
His dark lashes blink faster. My heart skips into a complicated rhythm.
“You’re not allowed to ask about my house until you explain why you didn’t come home last summer. Where were you? Why didn’t you at least warn me?” My voice climbs too high. “I was worried, Ever.”
Worried.What a small, weak word. It can’t possibly contain what I felt last summer when the seasons shifted and he didn’t appear. It was the first time he hadn’t returned since he’d moved away from Bottom Springs. The first time he’d let me down since we were seventeen. I’d lain awake all night, letting it sink in that he’d finally wised up and realized he was better off without this place, me included. I’d cried so hard and long I’d imagined the salt carving great tracks down my cheeks, like it did to rocks over eons.
Everett’s mouth quirks. His strangeness is legendary in Bottom Springs, but I suspect no one but me knows what playful expressions it can take. “I don’t own a cell phone or a computer.” He raises his eyebrows. “Should I have trained pigeons to find you?” He’s trying to make light of it, distract me. But the sight of him teasing only makes the place where my heart broke and scabbed over ache worse.
“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” I say quietly. He straightens at my tone. Here we are, facing an imminent threat from the sheriff, andthisis the subject I’m stuck on, the thing that hurts most.
“I know.” Ever leans against the couch. “I can’t tell you why I didn’t come. Please just trust me that I had to stay away. I should’ve stayed this summer, too, but I’m weak. I missed you. And now, with everything happening…it’s good I came.”
“Don’t ever say you shouldn’t come. You can’t leave me here to fendfor myself.” One of the best things about me and Everett has always been that we can say whatever we’re thinking, total honesty, even if it makes us look silly or greedy or weak. That’s the upside of being the pastor’s daughter and the Devil’s son, two outcasts who became friends the way we did. From the start, nothing has been off-limits.
His dark eyes are full of regret. “I really am sorry for making you worry.”
I study him, feeling the weight of the secret he won’t tell me. I could try to keep my anger going. I could tell him how last summer I’d been so sad I stopped going to work, stopped reading, even stopped getting out of bed, until my parents showed up to pray over my body, convinced something unholy was trapped in my head. I could try to make him suffer like he’s made me. But the truth is, my heart is a fickle betrayer. Despite everything—the fear and panic and stress—the simple sight of him makes happiness spill through me, slow and sweet as honey. Against all reason, a small part of me believes what he said: that with him here, somehow it will be okay.
Everett exhales, long and deep. “Will you tell me who he is now? The man whose scent is in your house.”
I can think of no way to avoid it, so I rest a hand on the wall for support. “I couldn’t call you. I didn’t know where you lived because it’s always changing. What could I have thought other than you’d left me? It was either that or you were dead.” I take a step toward him, then stop. “You have no idea how lonely I was.”
Ever hears the pleading tone in my voice. His eyes meet mine.
“You know what my parents are like. How they push.”
He stays silent, but the corners of his mouth turn down like he’s starting to feel sick.
“A year without you and I caved, Ever. I let them set me up.”
