He breaks off, swallows and shakes his head before speaking again.
“But I don’t ask you. And I won’t, not for this. I’m telling you now because I can’t go another second not telling you. I just wanted—I wanted to give you a break. A real break. That’s why I brought you here. No other reason. I swear to you.”
I shouldn’t believe him. I know I shouldn’t. He’s no one I know. He’s just a guy with a job that puts me and my sister at risk.
He’s no one to me, no matter how he’s made me feel over the last few days.
I should go get Tegan.
Take the van. Leave here and go home. Convince her to forget everything about this trip, convince her to focus on her future. Stay on my own side, forever.
“Because you what?” I say instead.
“What?”
“Why do you want to know things about me, if it’s not for Salem? If it’s not about my mom? Why only me?”
He blinks at me, clenches his jaw. Football-photo face.
For a tense few seconds I think he won’t answer, and I want to scoff in frustration. I want to tell him he owes it to me. I want to say,You held my hand.
Except that would be so revealing, and I’m not going to reveal anything to Adam Hawkins, not anymore.
“Because I—” He’s struggling again, a swallow and another shake of his head, a breath through his nose. I don’t feel any sympathy for him.
Idon’t.
“Jess, I’ve had the wrong instincts about you from the first time I saw you. You opened your front door and I saw your face and half of me wanted to close it again for you. Spare you Salem, and the story we were coming to get. Except if I did that, I’d miss my chance to look at you, or hear your voice, no matter how little you used it. I’d miss my chance to be near this . . . this storm I saw inside you.”
I drop my arms from where they cross against my body. I want to ask him,What storm?But also, I’m pretty sure I don’t have to. I know what storm. I’ve lived with it since Mom’s first letter, leaving me with Dad.
I just don’t know why it seems to have quieted down now.
Why it goes silent when Adam speaks again.
“I know it makes me a shitty journalist. It probably makes me a shitty person, too. But this is the truth, Jess. I don’t want to know you for the story. I want to know you for myself.”
Chapter 14
Adam
“Wow, you are fucked.”
My sister comes to stand next to me at the table saw where I’ve been cutting—or, I guess, in this case, miscutting—narrow beams for the geodesic greenhouse domes we’ve spent the whole day plotting out and building. This is a big step for a new floriculture education project Beth envisions for the farm, and now I’ve slowed her down. I step back and set my hands on my hips, shaking my head at myself.
Wow, Iamfucked, I think, with the same heavy dread that’s been haunting me since last night.
Instead I say, “Shut up. I haven’t done this in a while.”
Beth snorts. “Please. You were never good at carpentry. I should’ve brought Katie out here; I probably wouldn’t have had to check her work as much.”
I gently shoulder-check her, cracking a smile for the first time in hours. But just as quick I go back down to frowning at my most recent cut. Too short. I’m not paying attention.
“Anyway, I’m talking about something else,” Beth says, shoulder-checking me back.
I don’t look over at her, but I don’t really have to. Beth and I are only thirteen months apart, and we’ve always been close. When Cope died, and I came back here, Beth was the only person I could bring myself to talk to some days, even if it was just to say I didn’t want to talk. She’d go for long, silent walks with me, even though she was hugely pregnant at the time. In the middle of the night, she’d come downstairs and sit with me on the couch when she’d hear me get up, restless with grief, still checking my social media feeds constantly, scrolling through the wild swings of praise and vitriol being sent my way. She knows me well enough to know I’m upset today, and she’s probably got a good guess as to why.
“Yeah,” is all I say.
