“He’s been my best friend since we were three.”
“Maybe that’s too long. Maybe it’s time to make new choices.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said.
“Okay. I didn’t mean to upset you. Just trying to help.”
We finished every last bite of that meal without finding one other thing to talk about.
I learned something about kissing that day. I learned it can wipe the slate clean of just about everything that came before it.
We were lying side by side on the big tablecloth. The dishes and any leftover trash had been carefully packed into the basket, which I’d placed off to the side. Out of our way.
She moved her face over close to mine, and I kissed her. And suddenly everything felt okay again. I knew there had been something bad back there, behind us. Something had happened and I hadn’t forgotten it. Not by any means. But it felt like such ancient history now. Like it couldn’t possibly still matter.
I’ve had the same feeling many times since, over the years, in relationships. Some little tip of an iceberg peeks up above the surface. Then it goes down again, and you think, Oh good. It’s gone. I guess it was nothing.
Only now I’m not a kid anymore. So now I know.
We kissed for a long time. I have no idea how long. Might have been ten minutes that felt like a second. Might have been a few seconds that stretched out forever.
She rolled over onto her back and sighed. Not a bad sigh. More of a contented one. She laced her hands together behind her head and looked up at the late afternoon sky through the trees. So I did the same.
“This is nice out here,” she said.
“Yeah. I like it out here in the woods.”
“You seem to know these woods pretty well.”
“I run out here.”
“Oh. Right. I heard you were a runner. I heard you scored a place on the track team for the fall semester.”
Suddenly, in my head, I was on the team for the first time ever. Really on the team. Not resisting. Not planning to weasel out of it.
“You run through these woods all by yourself?” she asked. Before I could think how to answer.
“No. Not usually alone. I have a couple big dogs who run with me.”
“I didn’t know you had dogs.”
“They’re not mine.”
“You run with two dogs that aren’t yours?”
“I do.”
“Whose are they?”
“You know that lady who lives out here in the woods?”
The silence that followed my question felt weird. It felt much too silent.
“You mean . . . ,” she began. But then she didn’t seem to want to ask me who I meant.
“Zoe Dinsmore,” I said.
Looking back, I’m not sure why I felt safe enough to say it. I guess all that kissing had softened up my brain. I had misplaced all my best walls and boundaries.
She sat bolt upright.
“You know her?”
“A little. Do you?”
“No. But I know who she is. And I’m shocked that you know her, Lucas. I’m . . . shocked.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s . . .”
But then she seemed unwilling to finish her thought again.
“What? She’s what?”
“She’s a killer.”
I sat bolt upright, too.
“She’s not a killer,” I said.
“She killed two kids. That makes her a killer.”
“She didn’t kill them.”
“So why are they dead?”
“An accident killed them.”
“And she caused the accident.”
“But it was an accident.”
“But she caused it.”
I could feel that we were going around in a loop, like that traffic circle in Blaine, but I couldn’t find a place to turn off.
“Sometimes things happen,” I said. “It’s not like she did it on purpose.”
“She showed up to work on hardly any sleep. And drove innocent kids around. Why didn’t she call in sick to work? Why didn’t she pull over when she knew she was sleepy?”
“Maybe she didn’t know. My mother fell asleep at the wheel once. With me in the car. I think I was about seven. We were coming back from the north county, and her head nodded, and then she drifted over the centerline and scraped a car going the other way. Just sort of scraped the trim off the guy’s door. She kept saying the same thing over and over—that she hadn’t had any idea she was so tired. She hadn’t known she was about to go to sleep. She couldn’t feel it. Every night I lie in bed and try to go to sleep. And then the next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes and it’s morning. I never feel myself fall asleep. Ever. Do you?”
We sat there for what felt like a long time. Staring down at the town, which I thought looked less welcoming than it had a minute ago. She never told me if she could feel herself fall asleep.
“Why are you defending her?” she asked after a time.
Her voice was like glass. Whatever door she had opened into her life for me was closed and locked now. And you didn’t have to be an expert on girls to know it.
“I just think things happen sometimes and it’s not really anybody’s fault.”
“I don’t,” she said. Still like glass. “I think we have to take responsibility for what we do.”
“So if my mom had hit that guy’s car head-on, and somebody in the car had died, you’d think my mom was a killer?”
“Of course not,” she said.
Now she really had my mind spinning in circles. Uncomfortably so. It was dizzying.
“What’s the difference?”
“Your mom is a good person.”
“You know my mom?”
“Not really. But I know she is.”
That was the moment when my door closed.
I locked it.
I could have continued to argue. I could have pointed out that she had decided my mother was an angel and Zoe Dinsmore was the devil without knowing either one of them. And that her worldview made no sense.
I didn’t. Because I knew she was not my girlfriend and she never would be. So why even bother trying to get through?
That disastrous conversation had allowed me to look through the window of her and see the
