Indigo

“Yeah.”

“And what are you doing today?”

“Hanging out with Rennick and Mia-Joy. We might go to the carnival over in Woodmere. Might be far enough away that people don’t know me.”

“Be careful.” Mom cupped my face in her hands. “I’ve missed you.” And she pulled me to her again. “Take your phone.”

And then she left for work, and I felt so very normal, so very seventeen again. I swallowed back the lump in my throat, pushed back the urge to pore over the pictures of Sophie upstairs. This was me. The new me.

If the past few days had been a new beginning for me, a new window back into life, arriving at the carnival with Mia-Joy, Jules, and Rennick was like baptism by fire—all the sights and sounds and smells. The Mardi Gras paper lanterns strung around the park, the sweet aroma of funnel cakes and cotton candy, the zoom of the salt- and-pepper-shaker rides, the ringing bells of the carnival games. The music was loud with a boom- boom-thwack bass beat that I could feel in my teeth. And the people.

So many people, their shoulders brushing mine, their laughter a little too loud, but everyone was so happy, so in the moment. Mezzo forte. I had missed being in a crowd like this.

Being so very alive.

From the second they picked me up, I could tell that Rennick had pulled out all the stops for me. His hair had a new, combed look about it, and he smelled fresh and clean, a soapy scent mixed in with the smell that was just him, his skin, his sweat. The confident smile, the easy way he laughed with Mia-Joy; he reminded me of my old black-and-white movie heroes. And I had dressed up too, my favorite summer dress, white, short, and flirty. I had knotted my hair at the nape of my neck, stuck a daisy from Mom’s garden in it on a last-minute whim.

But I knew I was hanging back a little. It was one thing to act boldly in the dark of the night. Everything seemed a little more possible then. But now, here, in the stark sunlight of the carnival, I didn’t know how to act. It felt a little like last night hadn’t counted. It had been such a crazy time, with saving Seth and jumping into the pool.

Mia-Joy and Jules rode in the back of the Jeep. Jules’s arm swung around Mia-Joy, their heads together, talking, giggling. Jules was a big guy. I knew him from school, a little too popular. But Mia-Joy seemed to think he was better than all right. He paid me no attention, but that was fine with me.

As we walked into the carnival, Rennick saw me watching them ahead of us. They had skedaddled right for the Tunnel of Love.

“You don’t mind if we disappear, do you, Corrine?” Mia-Joy had asked. I shook my head.

“Jules is all right,” Rennick said, motioning ahead.

“Yeah?” I said, watching them, wishing I didn’t think that Mia-Joy only went for the lookers.

“Isn’t that what you’re worrying about? He’s got an ego, this whole cool thing going on, but he’s okay.”

“It’s not just that,” I said as we stood in line to buy some tickets for rides. “I just keep wondering when she’s going to have a … problem. The rip in her aura.”

“So you believe me,” he said with a grin. “Twenty bucks’ worth,” he told the ticket taker.

“I can pay too—”

Rennick shook his head, one curt little shake. I watched that gravity-defying lock of hair move back and forth.

A group of teenagers came at us then, laughing, sharing popcorn, and they weren’t looking where they were going. A short kid with a ring in his nose came stumbling right at me, and I tried to get out of his way but he ran square into me.

“Whoa!” he said, spilling his popcorn.

“Sorry.” I backed away from him, hands up in surrender.

“Sorry, dude!” he apologized, but the unwanted physical contact unnerved me.

“No problem,” Rennick said, but he was eyeing the kid.

Rennick grabbed my hand then, held it for a second, pulled me closer to him. “Okay?” he asked as he pressed his palm into mine. It was much rougher than mine. I let my palm press against his. My hand fit so perfectly in his, and my stomach flipped when he squeezed.

“Yes,” I answered, looking up at him.

“You sure? We don’t have to.”

I nodded.

We walked around the carnival for a while, slowly. We got ice cream cones. Pistachio for him, strawberry for me. And we talked about other things. I never let go of his hand—the connection there, it was something. Physio-electric. Both calm and alive. Reassuring.

He asked me about Chicago, about Sophie. My drawings. He told me how he wanted to travel out West before he went to college, maybe even med school after, if he could stomach school that long. It made me think of college again. I hadn’t for so long. And now I could hope and plan and do … anything.

I learned he hated pizza (Tomatoes, blech! he said), and he loved to golf. But his first love was definitely science. That’s what he had been doing all those years on the lake, on that Fourth of July when I met him. He had been collecting rocks.

Just like Sophie.

“So that’s gotta be weird, to love science and have this unexplainable power,” I said as we sat on a bench near the Ferris wheel.

“Nah,” he said. “It is science. We just haven’t figured out the equations behind it all, the figures. Not yet. I reckon soon.

“You want to ride this?” he said, gesturing to the Ferris wheel.

“Sure.” We stood up. I was taking a few last licks of my ice cream cone when that same bunch of teenagers came up out of nowhere, and one of the bigger ones—he had a spider tattoo on his neck—said, “That’s the girl from the news, from over in the French Quarter.”

“The freak show,” one of the girls cackled.

“Hey,” Rennick said. His voice was new, a warning.

“Why don’t you take your voodoo ass back to your own neighborhood,” the big guy said, and then the girl on his arm reached out and pushed my ice cream cone right into my chest, into my eyelet sundress. I stood openmouthed, unable to believe that somebody could be so brazen.

I didn’t have time to process it. In a flash, Rennick was in the guy’s face. His voice was a growl. I realized how deceiving his looks were—tall, sinewy, unassuming—but now, in the thick of it, the square of his shoulders, the clamp of his jaw looked so different and threatening. “You will step away right now. Or you will be sorry.” His fists were balled at his sides, and I saw the other guy’s reaction, how taken aback he was. How he hadn’t been expecting this from a skinny guy like Rennick—the fierce reaction, the fiery look in his eyes.

Rennick took one step closer, jabbed the guy in the chest with two fingers. “Now.” The guy stepped back. “Get out of here,” Rennick snarled, waiting for anyone to advance, cocking his fist. I found myself thinking, Rennick’s a lefty. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said to the whole group. They were all backing away. There was just something about this new version of Rennick.

You didn’t want to mess with him.

Rennick relaxed his shoulders. The group was going, gone.

“I’m sorry,” he said to me. He took my hand back, and I could feel that he was shaking. His breathing was quick, shallow.

“You said you didn’t fight at Penton or—” I didn’t know what to make of this scene.

“I don’t like fighting.” He gave me a look. “But I never said I couldn’t do it. Especially when some asshole is going to hurt someone I …” He let his voice trail off. He took his hand away from mine then, lifted his T-shirt to wipe his sweaty brow. But I caught it, the flush in his cheeks, however momentary. What had he almost said?

Mia-Joy and Jules came running up. She took the ruined ice cream cone from my hand, threw it in the garbage, fussed over me. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Rennick just nearly punched somebody for me.”