Envious Moon(39)

I stayed put until I was comfortable he was long gone. Then I went back to the window and when I looked through this time, what I saw seized my heart. She was only inches from me, separated by glass. I could only see the tiniest piece of her where she leaned over the desk, her bangs hanging over her forehead, a swipe of her face. There was only one thing to do. I didn’t care what happened.

I rapped softly on the glass with my knuckles. Once and then again. A hand appeared at the bottom and the shade went up. Instinctively, I stepped back.

Standing there in the glass, staring out into the dark at me, stood Hannah. She wore a white tank top and pajama bottoms. Hannah slid the window up and when she did, I started to cry. I hadn’t planned to but it just happened. Big, choking tears too. For a moment she just looked at me. She seemed too stunned to say anything and I was crying too hard to talk. It was like something opened inside me and I had no idea how to stuff it back in.

Hannah said, “I’m going to get the cops.”

Suddenly I managed to talk. I said, “Don’t do that, Hannah. Don’t. Please. Don’t. I just need to talk to you. Please. And then if you want, I’ll go away. You can call the cops. Never see me again.”

“You killed him,” she said. “They said you killed him.”

“No,” I said, “you have to listen to me. Can we just talk, please? Please,” I said. “Come with me. Ten minutes. Hear me and then you can go.”

I wiped tears away from my face with the back of my sleeve and for a moment she didn’t do anything. She just looked at me. Behind her the door opened and another girl came in the room. She was tall and blond and wore pajamas too. She looked frightened when she saw me standing there. But of course she wouldn’t understand.

“Hannah,” she said. “Is this him?”

“Come with me, Hannah,” I said, and I reached for her hands. She didn’t resist me. I helped her out and through the window.

“Can I just get a sweater?” Hannah said, when she stood next to me.

“Sure,” I said.

“Emma, hand me a sweater and some jeans. My sneakers.”

“Are you crazy?” Emma said. “You’re going to get expelled.”

“Just do it, Emma.”

The tall girl went to the closet and came back with a pair of jeans, a bulky wool sweater, and a pair of white sneakers. She handed them out the window. Hannah dropped her pajama bottoms and in the dark I saw her beautiful legs where they came out of her panties. She wriggled into the jeans and then slid the sneakers on. She pulled the sweater over her head.

“What should I do?” the other girl asked.

“Just wait,” Hannah whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

“This way,” I said.

I led her in the dark through the campus I knew as well as she did, toward the soccer field.

We sat cross-legged on the dewy grass facing each other. Our knees touched. I tried to hold her hands but she would not let me yet. It was so dark I could barely see her face. I was grateful for the dark, because I wanted her to focus on my words, not my eyes or my mouth. I wanted Hannah to hear everything I had to say. I wanted the words to sit still in the air for her to gather in herself when she wanted to.

I spoke softly but insistently. I told her everything. I left nothing out. I told her all that had happened before she found me on the beach. I said how Victor had been at her grandmother’s wake, and had gotten bad information that she had lived alone and that the house would be empty. How he saw the money under the carpet and that was why we had gone there. Because we were poor and it was a lot of money. We never would have gone into the house if we knew someone was there. I said that when she appeared on the stairs I could not stop looking at her. That I knew then that I loved her and I know that sounds crazy but that was the way it was. And how I never saw her father until he was on me, until he drove me into the railing. I had only tried to get away from him. I didn’t fight back or do anything. He fell, I said. It was an accident and if I could do anything to bring him back, I would. I said I wished that I was the one who had gone over the railing. Only if I had I never would have known her. We would not have had that time on the island. And I could only speak for myself, but before then I had been drifting through life without ever feeling anything, really feeling anything, like I was one of those people who couldn’t experience pain, so that they could touch a hot stove and burn the shit out of themselves and not know it.

When I was done, I stopped talking and I listened to her breathe across from me. I was quiet. She cried. I wanted to reach out to her but I was on her schedule. I let her cry and I cried again myself. A brisk wind moved across the field and I felt it on my shirt. I wanted her to tell me I had said enough. I wanted her to tell me we were okay. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to lie down next to her. I wanted to trace her face with my fingers.

Finally, she spoke. Barely a whisper. She said, “I believe you.”

I whispered back, “Say my name.”

“Why?”

“Please, I need to hear you say it.”

“Anthony,” Hannah said.

I put my hands on her arms. I slid them up near her shoulders. Sitting cross-legged like we were, we formed a wheel. I leaned my head forward as far as I could.

“Come here,” I said. She moved her face toward mine in the dark. I turned my head sideways and sitting there in that field our cheeks touched and when I pushed them closer together it hurt but neither of us cared at all.