I’m trying-trying-trying not to breathe so fast. But Porter shifts, and the hand that isn’t trapping me falls to the side. His
ngers dance over my hand, a gossamer touch, and he traces soft
patterns on my open palm, Morse code taps, gently urging, send a thousand electric currents of signals up my nerves.
“Why?” he whispers against my cheek.
I whimper.
He knows he’s won. But he asks one more time, this time against my ear. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you.”
I can’t even hear my own voice, but I know he does when a sigh gusts out of him, long and hard. His head drops to the crook of my neck and rests there. ?e ngers that were teasing me with their little tap-tap-tapping messages now curl around my ngers, loosely clasping. And the arm pinning me to the mailbox is now lifting away, and I feel his hand smooth down the length of my hair.
A tremor runs through me.
“Shh,” he says softly against my neck. I nearly fall to pieces.
I don’t know what we’re doing. What he’s planning to do. What I want him to do. But we’re swaying and clinging to each other like the earth might crack open beneath our feet at any given moment, and I’m a little bit afraid that I really might be having a stroke, because I can hear the blood swishing around in my temples and my knees suddenly feel like they’ve gone rubbery and I might collapse.
?en he freezes against me.
“Whatwasthat?” he slurs, pulling all his wonderful warmth away.
Now I hear it. Windowpanes shaking. “Oh, God,” I whisper. I’m going to have a heart attack. “It’s the surround sound on the TV. My dad’s probably watching some stupid sci- movie. It shakes the windows during the battle scenes.” Now come back here.
?en we hear a slam. ?at was no TV. ?at’s the door to the —
“Carport!” I whisper. “Other side of the house!”
“Crap!”
“?at way!” I say, shoving him toward a bush.
Two quick strides, and he’s hidden. I hear the squeal of the trash bin in the carport and exhale a sigh of relief; Dad can’t see us from there. But that was close. Too close.
“Bailey?” Dad calls out. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, Dad,” I call back. Stupid curfew. “I’m home. Coming around.”
Movement catches my eye. I turn in time to see Porter sneaking across the street. He’s pretty good, I must admit. No Artful Dodger, but still. When he gets to the other side, he turns to look at me one last time, and I swear I can see him smiling in the dark.
“Never trust a junkie.”
—Chloe Webb, Sid and Nancy (1986)
15
Tiny arms hug me from behind. I’m engulfed by the scent of baby lotion. “I’m so, so sorry,” Grace’s el n voice says into the middle of my back as she squeezes me. “Will you ever forgive me?”
It’s the following day, and I’m standing in front of my locker in the break room at work. We texted last night after Porter sneaked away—and after my dad got over being amazed that he never heard Grace’s car drive up, and why didn’t she come inside? Ugh. Once you tell one lie, plan on telling about twenty more, because they pile up like yesterday’s garbage.
“?ere’s nothing to forgive,” I tell her. I’m just relieved she didn’t think I ditched her for Porter—or ask why I was with him. “But for Halloween, I’m dressing up like a tree and you’re going as a sloth. I’ll carry you around while you eat my leaves.”
“You probably could,” she says, releasing me and opping back against the lockers, arms crossed. “You’ve got all that secret strength for taking down adolescent boys. Were you on the varsity wrestling team back in DC? Coronado Cove’s got a Roller Derby team, you know. ?e Cavegirls.”
I snort a laugh. “No, I didn’t know that, but I’ll keep it in mind for this fall.”
