“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dad said too calmly. “The two of you make things right?”
Eva’s throat closed with a sudden, hard lump of emotion. No, they hadn’t made things right. She didn’t think they ever would, and if she was being honest, she wasn’t sure she even wanted them to.
“I’m taking him to get that tire patched this morning, before we scatter Lottie’s ashes. I don’t know how long the boy will stick around after that.”
The way he eyed her made her feel as transparent as the glass in the windows. Eva broke their eye contact and took a sip of tea, hating the way her body reacted to those words. She wanted Arthur to go. So why did the thought of him leaving again still sting?
The silence in their little kitchen seemed to grow heavier with every passing second. Dad’s expression shifted, worry lines creasing the planes of his face. “He isn’t doing well, is he?”
The man at their door last night had been near unrecognizable from the boy Eva remembered. Even this morning, she’d been forced to acknowledge the signs of self-neglect staring her in the face. The deep exhaustion bruising Arthur’s eyes. The too-thin frame. He was underweight again, and tapping, like he always did when he was anxious.
“No,” Eva admitted, setting her teacup back onto its plate.Not well at all.
Chapter 5
Arthur,
Before
Mom and I wintered in the southern states, tuned to the sun like a migrating flock. I turned seventeen only days before the warming spring weather woke her need to uproot us again.
The sun chased us north into the Blue Ridge Mountains. I looked up from my book in time to catch a glimpse of a fading sign naming our destination:AUDREY, PENNSYLVANIA. It wasn’t the worst pit-stop town I’d seen, though it was quite out of the way. Pastels washed Main Street in soft, childlike hues, Victorian-style storefronts fringed in frost-white trim, like something from a storybook.
Cute.
“Why are we here, exactly?” When I’d asked before, Mom had been very cagey about this little detour, but I was used to her impulsiveness and hadn’t given it much thought until now.
Mom parked beneath a wooden sign featuring a painted yellow bee. “You’re staying with a friend of mine for a while.”
The monster slithered up my spine, its cold touch raising the hairs on my nape. I could practically taste its suspicion. The monster had been with me most of my life, twined between bone,sinew, and something else… something soul-deep and far too delicate to protect on my own. That’s what the monster was for.
“A friend?” I repeated, sounding far calmer than I felt.
Mom killed the engine and turned to face me. She wore her slightly too-bright smile. “You’ll like Jack,” she strained. “I promise.”
My heart beat a staccatono.No, no, not again. She’d left me before, of course. My mother was a bird, and sometimes birds flew away, leaving their younglings behind in a nest.
“Is this one my father?” It took guts to ask, heat crawling up my neck.
Mom shook her head. “No. Jack and I, we never—”
“I don’t need the details.” I sank into the embroidered seat cover, chest deflating, whether in relief or disappointment, I wasn’t sure. My mind raced. I couldn’t remember her ever mentioning a Jack, and I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“He’s smart,” Mom offered. “He can help you with calculus.”
“I finished calculus.”
She opened and closed her mouth. “Well, he’s… got a daughter your age.”
“Is she pimping us out?”the monster asked.
“Maybe the two of you could be friends,” Mom pushed.
“He already has a friend.”
I shooed the monster’s grumble away. It had never liked sharing, but I wasn’t in the mood for its jealousy right now.
For the vast majority of my seventeen years, I’d spent my life on the road, camping and hiking. Mom liked the freedom of van life. She collected boyfriends in every state and rocks from every national park. I collected books and Polaroids but never a friend who lasted. It wasn’t worth it when we never stayed in any one place for long.
