A humid breeze toys with the hem of my sundress around my thighs, even slipping one thin strap down my shoulder. His gaze rests on me, following the movement and making my skin warm as I right it with one hand. His gaze skids past me to settle on the gently rippling surface of Hackman’s Pond, swollen high from the rain.
“That’s fine.” He says it with such indifference that I’m almost bothered.
I hesitate and start second-guessing a million things.
He frowns before shifting his gaze back to me and the ten-plus feet still separating us. “Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean that I couldn’t care less if you were here or not.” His frown deepens, then smooths with obvious effort. “I don’t know how to talk to you yet. You’re not—” he stares at me, his brows drawn together, perplexed this time rather than annoyed “—anybody else.”
That was a vague statement, but I think I know what he means. There’s no default for how to act around him. He’s not some guy I can smile at and hope he smiles back. I’m not trying to impress or repel him, and I don’t know if I can befriend him or if that’s something I can even want. Making a joke would feel so wildly out of place, and yet I don’t want to be somber and morose either. Plus we don’t know each other, and the only shared experience we have is one that keeps us both up at night.
I decide to take the first step, literally, and even though he watches me somewhat warily, he doesn’t tense up. I choose a section of the branch that’s close enough to the ground that the tips of my toes graze the grass when I sit.
“What about you? Do you have a job?” I ask.
“Over at Porter’s Grocery store, stock clerk, but mostly late at night.”
I pluck one of the small, green leaves that seem to be dripping from above me and rub the smooth waxy surface between my thumbs. “Graveyard?”
“If I can get it.”
I think about that, then nod, deciding I’d probably pull for the late shift too. Fewer people. I’m reaching for another leaf when the question spills out of me. “Can I ask you something?”
Heath reclaims his seat several feet away from me, his expression open and waiting.
I have rubbed the leaf I’m holding nearly clear through and I look down at the green residue on my thumb. “You said your family talks a lot about C—your brother—”
“Cal. You can say his name.”
I don’t look up, but the even tone in Heath’s voice allows me to keep going. “You guys talk about Cal a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it the same? Your family—are they sad but still the same, or is it like they’re different people?”
Heath leans against the tree trunk. “Everyone tries to be the same, but it feels false a lot of the time, like they’re pretending it’s okay that he’s gone because we have all these happy memories—’cause we can only remember the good ones. But then somebody’ll slip and say the wrong thing, and it’s like he just died all over again. The only thing we have then is the anger.”
Leaves lay abandoned in a pile on my knee. “What about your sister?” He has a much older sister; I remember seeing her in the courtroom, stoic and unflinching even during the worst parts.
“Gwen will be angry for the rest of her life. If she found out I was talking to you, she’d come for me first, and she wouldn’t feel bad about it afterward.”
No wonder he didn’t mention seeing me to his family.
“And your sister?”
“The opposite. Most of the time Laura acts like she feels nothing. She worshipped my brother, I don’t think she knows how to cope with a reality where he’s...” I still can’t say it, so Heath does it for me.
“A convicted murderer.”
It doesn’t sound like he’s relishing the words this time, so I nod. “The way my boss acted—we all get that reaction, but it’s hardest for Laura. She’s only fourteen, and people used to drive past her and throw things at her. My parents started homeschooling her last year after a bunch of kids rigged her locker with exploding blood bags.”
Heath swears under his breath. “That’s sick.”
I nod.
After a moment, he asks, “What’d they do to you?”
“Nothing like that,” I say, thinking of Mark being in my room while I slept. I hadn’t wanted to let anyone chase me away from school, but at the time, I’d thought it might be easier for Laura if she wasn’t the only one shifting to online school. If my going back to homeschooling has helped, she has yet to show it.
“I actually like doing school online. I get my work done in half the time and I get to do it all in my pj’s if I want to. And it leaves me more time to skate when the rink is less busy.”
