He just said it, the way nobody had ever said anything to me before. He couldn’t be lying. He sounded too matter-of-fact for it to be a lie.
And my throat gave another hot flare of pain. I was all frost except for the live coal on my neck, under my clutching fingers and the wilted paper towel.
“So, mystery lady? What’s it going to be? You’re going to spend your short little life playing by their rules, or are you going to take your chance?”
I thought about it, worrying my frozen lower lip between my teeth. Then I made up my mind.
“It wasn’t my fault.” Gwyneth was still on it. She hunched her shoulders, her golden hair playing over them. “I had no idea. Honest, I didn’t.”
“It’s okay.” I even sounded all right. I didn’t have any Band-Aids, but the small twin punctures on my neck were white and worn-looking. You couldn’t even tell they were there. “What are you doing tonight, anyway?”
“I thought you could come over.” She slouched even further, the dappled fig-tree shade painting shadows on her arms and face. “We could watch a movie or something. Pajama party.”
I couldn’t agree right away. “What about Mitzi?” I glanced past Gwyn, to where the blonde bitch queen of Crispie cast a venomous little darting look our way.
“She’s a bitch. You know she’s dating Holder now?” Gwyn rolled her eyes. “It’s amazing. The two of them are like two vacuum cleaners talking to each other. Let’s skip fourth, too, and go shopping. Come on. What do you say?”
What else was there to say, except yes? And I already knew Johnny wasn’t picking me up.
Not today.
Her parents were out and Marisa was in bed. I lay very still until Gwyneth’s breathing evened out, her old pajamas feeling like friends against my skin. I hadn’t packed or even told Dad where I’d be. It was Friday, he’d gotten paid. He might have been at the bar even now. If he was at home, he was missing me.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now but the waiting.
She lay next to me the way she always did, elbows and knees poking. Even with a queen-size bed she took up all the space.
When she started the heaviest breathing of all, I slid carefully out of the bed. I got dressed quietly, my white shirt a ghost in the gloom. Tiptoed down her hall, avoided every squeak in the stairs with the ease of long practice. The kitchen was spotless and dark, the wind scrubbing the corners of the house and flinging dusty grit against the windows. Soon there would be a spark and the constant smell of smoke.
The glass diamonds on the kitchen door held nothing but the glow of a porch light. I stood there, my throat itching and my hand reaching for the knob and the mellow golden glow of the deadbolt lever. Each time the wind mounted another pitch, I would snatch my hand back.
I don’t know how long I stood there, feeling like an idiot in my rumpled school clothes, before a shadow appeared at the door. Just
I reached for the knob. Snatched my hand back again and stood there trembling as he waited. I didn’t know how long he’d stay, and if I didn’t open the door he would be gone in the morning. Just like that.
If I kept that door closed, I knew what would happen. I’d go to school. Go to college. Keep slogging away hoping the golden people would throw me a bone or two. And sooner or later Gwyneth wouldn’t need my forgiveness. She’d go back to hanging out with her own kind and forget I ever existed, and there would be no more of this pale perfect seashell of a house that I could pretend was mine.
The deadbolt slid back. He didn’t move.
I was cold all over and sweating again. The knob slipped in my fingers, and I heard a restless murmur. It was impossible to hear either Marisa or Gwyn muttering in their sleep, but I thought I did.
I twisted the knob and opened the door, and the wind came in full of dust and the smell of smoke. I guess the fires had started early.
I am shaking all over. My schoolbag sits obediently at my feet on the clean mat. The entire car smells new. I am cold even though it’s ninety degrees and dry as the inside of my mouth out there.
I don’t know what Johnny is. There’s not a word for it. I don’t even know if he’s really coming back to this car. To me.
An orange wisp sparks up on the hill, behind one of the upper windows. Gwyneth’s room, looking down over the semi-circular driveway and the manicured lawn. The wisp unfolds. It isn’t electric light. It’s something older.
If he comes down the hill I’ll see him silhouetted against the flames. My fingers are twisting together, slick with sweat. The puncture wounds on my throat feel hot and wet.
I am not sure if I want to see him coming down the hill. If he doesn’t, what am I going to do?
What am I going to do if he
All Wounds
by Dina James
WITH A POWDERY crunch, the tip of the pencil lead snapped and slid uselessly out of the wood beneath her fingertips. It rolled across Becky’s paper, leaving a gray smudge across the question she’d been attempting to answer.
She threw down her pencil in disgust.
“Now what?” her friend Robin asked in a hushed whisper, looking out from under her carefully styled-to- look-messy thick, blonde hair. Robin glanced around quickly, looking for Mr. Nairhoft.
“My pencil is being stupid again! Besides that, I really don’t think writing an essay about the Spanish conquistadors is going to help Nana remember where her bedroom is, or not to turn on the stove,” Becky sighed, glaring at the offending question on her assignment. “I need to get home!”
“Well at least make it look like you’re working,” Robin replied with another fast glance around for the detention room monitor. “Getting another detention isn’t going to help your Nana either. It’s a good thing she can’t remember when you’re supposed to be home anymore, or you’d really be in trouble!”
“Shh!”
“Is there a problem here, ladies?” Mr. Nairhoft said in a smooth, arrogant voice. “Rebecca?”
“Sorry, Mr. Nairhoft,” Becky apologized with a sweet smile. She really, really hated it when people called her “Rebecca.”
“This is the third time today my pencil’s broken,” she went on. “And I got frustrated with it. I’m sorry to have caused a disruption. May I go sharpen it again? That might help it, at least through the end of detention, anyway.”
Becky gazed up at the tall, rail-thin Mr. Nairhoft, hoping her repentant smile would earn her his permission.
“Does anyone have an extra pencil Miss MacDonnell can borrow?” Mr. Nairhoft asked loudly, turning around to view the detention hall, which was really just the cafeteria with the tables moved around a little. He’d glanced around so fast that he couldn’t have even bothered to see if anyone had an answer to his question. “No?”
Mr. Nairhoft turned back to Becky with that stupid fake smile he always had plastered on his face.
“Well—”
