'I'm more of an outdoor guy. Rivers and lakes.'
'Isn't that cold?' asked Mom.
At my side, Patch jerked. I wondered what I'd missed. Nothing about the conversation seemed out of the ordinary. And I had to side with my mom on this one. Maine was not a warm, tropical place. Outdoor swimming was cold, even in the summertime. If Patch really was swimming outdoors, he was either crazy or he had a high pain threshold.
'All right!' I said, taking advantage of the lull. 'Patch needs to get going.' Go! I mouthed at him.
That's a very nice Jeep,' Mom said. 'Did your parents buy it for you?'
'I got it myself.'
'You must have quite a job.'
'I bus tables at the Borderline.'
Patch was saying as little as possible, keeping himself carefully shadowed in mystery. I wondered what his life was like when he wasn't around me. At the way back of my mind, I couldn't stop thinking about his frightening past. Up until now I'd fantasized about discovering his deep, dark secrets because I wanted to prove to myself and to Patch that I was capable of figuring him out. But now I wanted to know his secrets because they were a part of him.
And despite the fact that I routinely tried to deny it, I felt something for him. The more time I spent with him, the more I knew the feelings weren't going away.
Mom frowned. 'I hope work doesn't get in the way of studying. Personally, I don't believe high school students should work during the school year. You have enough on your plates already.'
Patch smiled. 'It hasn't been a problem.'
'Mind if I ask your GPA?' Mom said. 'Is that too rude?'
'Gee, it's getting late-,' I began loudly, consulting the watch I didn't wear. I couldn't believe my mom was being so uncool about this. It was a bad sign. It could only mean her first impression of Patch was worse than I'd feared. This wasn't an introduction. It was an interview.
'Two-point-two,' Patch said.
My mom stared at him.
'He's joking,' I said quickly. I gave Patch a discreet push in the direction of the Jeep. 'Patch has things to do. Places to go. Pool to play-' I clamped a hand over my mouth.
'Play?' my mom said, sounding confused.
'Nora's referring to Bo's Arcade,' Patch explained. 'But that's not where I'm headed. I've got a few errands to run.'
'I've never been to Bo's,' she said.
'It's not all that exciting,' I said. 'You're not missing anything.'
'Wait,' said Mom, sounding a lot like a red flag had just sprung up in her memory. 'Is it out on the coast? Close to Delphic Seaport? Wasn't there a shootout at Bo's several years ago?'
'It's tamer than it used to be,' Patch said. I narrowed my eyes at him. He'd beaten me to the punch. I'd planned on outright lying about Bo's having any history of violence.
'Would you like to come in for ice cream?' Mom asked, sounding flustered, caught between doing the polite thing and acting on the impulse to drag me inside and bolt the door. 'We only have vanilla,' she added to sour the deal. 'It's a few weeks old.'
Patch shook his head. 'I've got to get going. Maybe next time. It was nice meeting you, Blythe.'
I took the break in conversation as my cue and pulled my mom toward the front door, relieved that the conversation hadn't been as bad as it could have been. Suddenly Mom turned back.
'What did you and Nora do tonight?' she asked Patch.
Patch looked at me and raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.
'We grabbed dinner in Topsham,' I answered quickly. 'Sandwiches and sodas. Purely harmless night.'
The trouble was, my feelings for Patch weren't 't harmless.
Chapter 19
I left the snow globe in its box and tucked it inside my closet behind a stack of argyle sweaters I'd poached from my dad. When I'd opened the present in front of Patch, Delphic had looked shimmer) and beautiful, light swirling rainbows from the wires. But alone in my bedroom, the amusement park looked haunted. A camp ideal for disembodied spirits. And I wasn't entirely sure there wasn't a hidden camera inside.
After changing into a stretchy camisole and floral pj pants, I called Vee.
'Well?' she said. 'How'd it go? Obviously he didn't kill you, so that's a good start.'
'We played pool.'
'You hate pool.'
'He gave me a few pointers. Now that I know what I'm doing, it's not so bad.'
'I bet he could give you pointers in a few other areas of your life.'
'Hmm.' Normally, her comment might have incited at least a flush from me, but my mood was too serious. I was hard at work, thinking.
'I know I've said this before, but Patch doesn't instill a deep sense of comfort in me,' Vee said. 'I still have nightmares about the guy in the ski mask. In one of my nightmares, he ripped off his mask, and guess who was hiding under it? Patch. Personally, I think you should treat him like a loaded gun. Something about him isn't normal.'
This was exactly what I wanted to talk about.
'What would cause someone to have a V-shaped scar on their back?' I asked her.
There was a moment of silence.
'Freak,' Vee choked. 'You saw him naked? Where did it happen? His Jeep? His house? Your bedroom?'
'I did not see him naked! It was sort of an accident.'
'Uh-huh, I've heard that excuse before,' said Vee.
'He had a huge, upside down V-shaped scar on his back. Isn't that a little weird?'
'Of course it's weird. But this is Patch we're talking about. He has a few screws loose. I'm going to take a wild guess and say… gang fight? Prison scars? Skid marks from a hit-and-run?'
One half of my brain was keeping track of my conversation with Vee, but the other, more subconscious half had strayed. My memory went back to the night Patch dared me to ride the Archangel. I recaptured the creepy and bizarre paintings on the side of the cars. I remembered the horned beasts ripping the wings off the angel. I remembered the black upside-down V where the angel's wings used to be.
I almost dropped the phone.
'S-sorry, what?' I asked Vee when I realized she'd carried the conversation further and was waiting for my response.
'What. Happened. Next?' she repeated, enunciating each word. 'Earth to Nora. I need details. I'm dying here.'
'He got in a fight and his shirt ripped. End of story. There's no what-happened-next.'
Vee sucked in a breath. 'This is what I'm talking about. The two of you are out together… and he gets in a fight? What's his problem? It's like he's more animal than human.'
In my mind I switched back and forth between the painting of the angel's scars and Patch's scars. Both scars had healed to the color of black licorice, both ran from the shoulder blades to the kidneys, and both curved out as they traveled the length of the back. I told myself there was a good chance it was merely a very creepy coincidence that the paintings on the Archangel depicted Patch's scars perfectly. I told myself a lot of things could cause scars like Patch's. Gang fight, prison scars, skid marks-just like Vee said. Unfortunately, all the excuses felt like lies. Like the truth was staring me in the face, but I wasn't brave enough to look back.
'Was he an angel?' Vee asked.
I snapped to myself. 'What?'
'Was he an angel, or did he live up to his bad-boy image? Because, honestly? I'm not buying this whole he-
