“No. Why would they?”
“Maybe some of it sticks,” he said. “In our subtext.”
“Maybe,” Anna said, crossing her legs, letting him rock the swing. “But I don’t think so.” She looked at his face. In profile. He had strong cheekbones and a strong nose. A dramatic jaw. Everything about him was solid. “Why do you think we want to be in stories?” she asked.
He turned back to her. “Because that’s what we are?”
“Yeah,” she said, “but as long as we’re here, we get to keep going. The story is theend.”
“It’s not the end, it’s the destination.”
“But everything stops then, right? Everything gets locked down. As long as we’re here, we’re doing new things. We’re changing. But once we’re in a book … that’s it.”
James had one eyebrow cocked down. Thoughtfully. “Once we’re in a book,” he said, “we’ve landed exactly where we belong, and we get to stay there forever.”
She smiled at him. At his stolid face and his blue eyes. The red hair falling over his forehead. “You’re very optimistic, James.”
He smiled a little at the name. “I am,” he said. “Unwaveringly.”
He made an effort to talk to her parents on the way up to bed. He couldn’t quite look in their eyes.
Anna said good night to him at his door, and then went to her room and changed into her nightgown. (She had multiple nightgowns. She had a winter coat. She had a hint of backstory about ice-skating.)
There was a knock at her door. She went to open it. James was standing there, grinning.
“Anna,” he whispered. “I’m James again.”
She grinned up at him. “Good night, James.”
She went to bed, knowing that he was still changing. That he might disappear. She wished that she had a camera. Or a way of keeping part of him.
“Don’t you get bored?” James asked. They were sitting on the swing, watching the chickens.
“Not really,” she said. “If you weren’t here, I’d be at the park, meeting the new people and chatting with friends. Everything’s always in flux.”
“Why haven’t you taken me back to the park?”
She looked at him. He’d wanted to wear something different today, so she’d lent him an oversized blue cardigan. “I thought it might discourage you,” she said. “To see people come and go.”
He didn’t argue. They were drinking lemonade. “What kind of bookwouldn’tyou want to live in?” he asked.
“A horror novel,” she said. She didn’t have to think about it. “Or a war story. What about you?”
He cocked an eyebrow, thinking. “I really hate space.”
That made Anna laugh. “Why do you hatespace?”
“There’s nothing there but death.”
“And aliens,” she said. “And Han Solo.”
“No, thank you.”
“What kind of book areyouhoping for?” she asked, leaning her shoulder into his.
“I think, when I first got here, that I wanted to end up in something like … a dramatization of historical events.”
Anna snorted.
