“No! If he sees us, he’ll shoot us. He’s just waiting for us to come out because he likes games.”
I had no way of knowing that. The truth was, I was terrified, about to piss myself, and needed any excuse not to move.
She fought me. She pulled at my arm, voice breaking, and she said Eli’s name so many times it stopped sounding like a name. But I held my ground and kept saying we have to stay, we have to wait, and eventually she stopped pulling. She pressed her face into my shirt and gripped the fabric so hard I felt her nails through the cotton. I wrapped my arms around her and stared at the lake through the trees and listened for the van’s engine.
One hour passed.
Je suis désolé, I mouthed into the top of June’s head, over and over, but no sound came out. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know who I was saying it to. Eli. June. Myself. All of us.
Désolé désolé désolé désolé désolé.
We sat behind that tree for about an hour while Eli was in that van.
When we finally moved, we went through the woods and stayed off the roads. Branches snagging our clothes. It took thirty minutes to reach the cabins. Our parents were happy to see us but that happiness soon turned to concern when theysaw our expressions. June couldn’t speak, so I told the story. Ice cream truck. Van. Eli. Gun. Hiding.
My mother’s hand flew to her mouth. My father grabbed his keys. Melia got on the phone with 911.
But we’d given the man an hour and thirty minutes to escape.
They found Eli’s body four days later, dumped by a lake, two counties over.
The man wasn’t caught for five years. He’d hurt children before Eli, and he did it many times after. They locked him away and I read about the trial when I was sixteen.
If we had run…
If I had let June go for help right away…
If I hadn’t held her behind that tree for sixty minutes because I was too scared to move…
Twelve years and I’ve never been brave enough to finish that thought.
I open my eyes. Eli’s headstone is still there. The time between his birth and death dates is so small it barely exists.
Behind me, June is crying.
The last time I chose her, someone died.
That’s why I’ve kept my distance, that’s why I’ve molded myself into what I am today. Every fight I’ve picked with her since. Every wall I’ve built. Every time I’ve opened my mouth to say something true and said something sarcastic instead.
If I choose her again, it will happen again.
I believe that the way I believe in gravity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JUNE
Headstones are lined up in the dark, and Eli’s is the smallest, low to the ground, close enough to the grass that dandelions grow over the letters in spring.
Dorien stands three feet ahead of me. He hasn’t turned around since that first glance over his shoulder, when his face told me everything I needed to know. Swollen bloodshot eyes, split lip, a bruise along his jaw. He’d been in a fight. He’d been drinking. He’d been doing what he does every year on this day—Carter always tells me about it—while I do what I do, which is paint until my hands cramp, then come here and stand in the only place I ever truly fall apart.
We’ve been quiet for a long time. I don’t know how long. The moon is higher than when I arrived, which means at least a half-hour has passed. My feet ache from standing. My face is stiff from crying.
I study the back of his leather jacket and the way his shoulders are angled down and caved forward. He looks smaller than I’ve ever seen him. Dorien takes up space in every room, filling silences with sarcasm, filling corners with his relaxedconfidence that borders on bravado. Here, he’s a man in front of a child’s grave.
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say before I say it.
“I-I shouldn’t have told him to go in the van.”
