Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(62)

*



“WHAT is it about that book?” His tone was mildly teasing.

I set it on my nightstand and watched him wander around my room. He picked things up carefully. Set them down. Wiped them off if he left a fingerprint. Since the War he’d never really known what to do with possessions.

“I like it. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s just an interesting choice,” he said, now even more intrigued. “It’s just not very … girly, I guess.” He laughed.

“It was written by a girl.”

“A girl who likes monsters.”

“Maybe I like monsters.” I hid a smile.

“Is that right?” Chase narrowed his eyes my direction. He sat beside me on the bed and bounced a little, unused to a mattress, then grinned like a little kid.

“He’s not really a monster, anyway,” I said. “It’s everyone else that makes him that way because he’s different. It’s sad, you know? How people can tear you down like that. How you try to do the right thing but you just can’t.”

Like telling Roy to stay away from my mother, I almost added, and felt my face heat up.

He tilted his head, eyes peering deep inside of me in a way that made me feel exposed, like I’d never really been seen before, yet at the same time safe, like he’d never tell a soul what he’d found. His fingers laced with mine.

“It sounds lonely,” he said.

*



I OPENED the book and gently unfolded a small bundle of papers, two of them sherbet green. These were legal documents, passing on the deed of his parent’s house to the surviving family member, Chase Jennings. It saddened me to think of this weight he carried.

The next papers, and there were thirty or so of them, were pounded thin and creased so severely they could have ripped if I’d opened them too fast. My pulse raced forward. I recognized the paper … the penmanship.

These were my letters. The ones I’d written to Chase in the MM. I opened a few, knowing I needed to hurry but not able to resist the temptation to verify they were real. I read through my meaningless small talk: what Beth and I were doing, how classes were going, conversations I’d had with my mother. My words produced a flood of nostalgia. The hard feel of the kitchen table and the smell of vanilla candles as I wrote late into the night. The fresh concern for his safety. The longing I’d felt for him.

I’d written about some of this. I’d told him that I missed him. That I was waiting impatiently to hear about his life. That I thought of him constantly. I’d finished each letter with “Love, Ember,” and it had been true. I’d loved Chase Jennings.

I thought of how he’d held me outside and wondered if I didn’t love him still.

Acknowledging this made my heart twist with confusion. He was infuriating and inconsistent. Bossy and overprotective and vague about everything. No one bothered me as much as him.

Because, I knew, no one meant as much to me. No one except my mother, and the love I had for her felt entirely different. Like needing oxygen and needing water.

Somehow, I was annoyed. Why had he kept these letters? At times it seemed he could barely stand being around me, and yet he’d carried mementos of our relationship through the service and halfway across the country. How separate was the old Chase, my Chase, from the soldier, after all?

And what would the hope that he still cared cost me?

I placed the letters back into the novel, careful to leave them just as they’d been found. When I did so, my eyes fell upon a quote, spoken by the narrator, Victor, to his beloved.



“I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured.”



I shivered involuntarily. Apparently my false identity hadn’t come out of nowhere.





CHAPTER


11



“HOW come you’re so big?” Ronnie said in wonderment from the dining room. He stood on top of his chair to try to measure up to Chase, but still fell drastically short.

“I eat lots of vegetables,” Chase lied, eliciting an encouraging thumbs-up from Mary Jane. “You mind if I sit here?” He’d chosen a seat that backed against the wall so that he had a clear view of the room.

“Nope,” said the kid.

“Use your manners, Ronnie,” said Mary Jane. I was helping her set the table.

“No, thank you,” said Ronnie.

She laughed nervously. “I mean, sit down please. Over here, by Mom.” She clearly wanted her son—the only one who seemed comfortable with the dinner arrangement—between his mother and father. Which left me relegated to the stranger’s side of the table with Chase.

I hated that Patrick hadn’t taken us straight to Lewisburg. His earlier friendliness had washed away, and he now gave off the distinct impression that he regretted asking us inside.

And to think I’d banked on just such kindness when I’d tried to run away.

We gathered around the table, and Ronnie gave the slowest rendition of Johnny Appleseed I had ever heard. The tension thickened. Finally we were eating, focused on something other than each other. I had hardly swallowed the first bite of pot roast before jamming the loaded fork back into my mouth. I told myself to eat as much as I could; we didn’t know when we’d get the chance at another hot meal.