I kept looking at Daniel out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to stare, but I was looking for anything, any shift of his body, that meant he wanted to say more. But he didn’t shift. He barely moved.
So I did.
I stretched out my legs, half curling one under me. “It’s going to start pouring any second. It’ll be like we’re under a waterfall. But we can go inside—I don’t think my dad will mind.” I knew he wouldn’t. Any other night, yes. But not this night. I put my hand flat on the roof between us, intending to stand up and urge Daniel physically as well as verbally to come inside, but his hand shot out and pressed mine down. It stung, since that was the hand I’d caught on a nail earlier, but I didn’t react.
“Stay,” he said. “Please.”
Daniel hadn’t moved save for his hand. Hadn’t turned his head to look at me. It was as though the rest of his body was locked. But I stayed. Of course, I stayed. Even now, his fingers were curling under mine, prying my hand up from the scratchy tiles, lacing our fingers together. His hand was so warm compared to mine. And his grip was just shy of painful, but I squeezed back just as firmly.
I didn’t bother with my sideways glances anymore. I openly stared. He was bouncing his head slowly, nodding it in small, rapid movements. Even in the dim light, I could see the scratch marks on his face from where she’d attacked him. His mom. They looked deep enough to scar.
I prayed they wouldn’t, that nothing in his life would ever scar him again.
When I reached out to brush his hair from his face, Daniel turned into my hand. A moment later he was clutching me to him, his hands locked behind my back.
It wasn’t a remotely romantic gesture.
His dad was dead. A man he’d spent most of his life cursing, maybe even wishing dead. I didn’t know if he felt relief or anger. Maybe he didn’t know. I think he’d been so focused on the burden of keeping his mom safe, showing her what life without abuse could be like, clinging desperately to the hope that she’d wake up one day and not hate him for trying to save her, that suddenly being freed from all that was its own kind of burden. One that he couldn’t share with anyone.
But he was, in a way, sharing it with me.
And that was why I clung to him as tightly as he clung to me. Why I didn’t press him to say a word. Why I thought of my mom and wondered if there could be an emotion somewhere between love and hate. Why I let the promised rain drench us both when it began to fall.
CHAPTER 46
Sean, Claire and I got home from the hardware store a couple days later, laden with paint cans and drop cloths. It felt like overkill for such a tiny room, but Claire was adamant, and I really wanted that periwinkle color gone from Dad’s bathroom. As first steps went, it was small, but it was a start, and Claire was ecstatic that I wanted her to help me take it.
She could barely see around the massive and scarily comprehensive box of painting supplies she was holding, but Sean noticed Daniel almost as soon as I did.
He was leaning against the front of his Jeep, both hands in his pockets as he squinted at me in the bright sunlight. I didn’t need to see the oversize duffel bag at his feet to know why he was waiting for me.
“We’re gonna head in and get set up.” Sean brushed my arm, then took Claire by the shoulders and steered her toward my house.
It was so much the perfect thing for him to say that I almost kissed him on the spot, but that didn’t feel like the best way to let Daniel know what had happened while he was gone. I didn’t regret my choice, but I did regret that it might hurt Daniel.
I walked toward him. “You’re leaving.” I tried to keep my voice steady. I’d known he would leave. I just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
“I wanted to see you before.” He cocked his head, looking at me and then toward Sean’s Jetta. “Guess I’m a little late.”
Daniel and I had missed from the start, and the lack of rancor in his voice told me he knew that too. It was a near miss in my case, maybe for him too, but we’d avoided true heartbreak.
And we cared enough about each other to be glad.
“You look happy,” he said.
“I feel happy. I’m trying not to scare it away.”
His smile was bittersweet. I knew better than to ask Daniel if he was happy, but I hoped he’d find it in his future, wherever he went.
I moved so that the sun split around my body and shaded his face. “Will you go back to Pennsylvania?”
Daniel shook his head and looked at the houses across the street. “There’s nothing there for me.” He tried to say it as if it didn’t matter, as if he was talking about some restaurant that he didn’t like instead of the only home he’d ever had. But I could see the effort behind his indifference in the way he kept his eyes traveling up and down the street, like he was just casually looking around when I knew his movement was because he didn’t want me to see his eyes.
“And your mom?” As far as I knew, she hadn’t come back since the police took her away.
“She’s got sisters there. I don’t have a reason to keep her away anymore.”
I heard the way he referred to them as his mom’s sisters, like he had no claim on them, even though they were his family as much as hers. There was a lot he’d never told me about his family, but he’d told me enough, both then and now. Either they didn’t want him, or he didn’t want them. I hoped for his sake it was the latter.
