If You Find Me(63)
I blush.
“So, Blackburn. A secret for a secret. That’s the deal, right?”
She holds out her hand, and I pull her to her feet.
I think of her and Derek and their kind of sex. Smiling. Not for money. Enjoying themselves.
A whole different world.
“A secret for a secret.”
She makes a fist and holds out her pinkie like a hook. I stare at it.
“Just do it.”
I do the same, and she hooks her pinkie through mine.
“Pinkie promise. Say it.”
“Pinkie promise.”
She lets go and wanders my room, her finger trailing the bindings of the poetry books lining the shelf above my desk.
“Hey, what’s this?”
A corner of one of the photographs catches the light. Delaney moves toward it, sliding it out from under the papers. She studies it for a long, long time.
“Oh. My. God. I get it now.” She holds out the photograph. “I can’t believe it. Is that—”
“Me and Ryan. We knew each other as children.”
“Oh. My. God.” She stares at me, then back at the photograph. “Wow. Just wow. No words.”
She puts the photo down and picks up the other. A tiny smile plays across her lips.
“This is a beautiful picture of you, Carey.”
“Thank you.”
I check her face. She really means it.
“Make sure you keep them somewhere safe. If it were me, I’d want to keep them forever.”
I nod, not sure how to respond to this new, softer Delly. I think of the woods, the winter chill melting off into spring, how it’s natural. Maybe this is natural. Maybe Melissa was right, and Delaney just needed time. Like all of us.
[page]“On that note, I need to catch some z’s. Night, Carey.”
“Night.”
She smiles at me from the doorway, and the chink, the tiny crack that let us in, remains.
I am the night bird, perched in the window seat. I reckon I love the concept of window seats. The world outside hums in black and white. It’s 2:00 a.m. The snow wears the moonlight like perfume.
My conversation with Delaney plays on a loop, powered by surprise, I reckon. Because I picture Delaney throwing up her hands at the kitchen table. Screaming at the party. Glowering at me in the halls at school. And I realize it’s all bluster.
Snow begins to fall, this boneless water turned mighty.
It’s all bluster out there, too.
A world is a world is a world.
Or, as Jenessa says, “human beans.”
Not so different.
14
It seems like a dream at first, but by the second scream, I’m wideawake and sitting up in bed.
“HERE, BOY! WHERE ARE YOUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUU!”
Some kid is outside yelling, and I wish who ever it is would shut up. Sunday is my day to sleep in, and after last night, and with an English lit and a physics test coming up this week, I need all the sleep I can get.
“SHORTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”
I open my eyes wide.
No way.
The words are thick with tears. My bedroom door flings open and Melissa rushes in, her expression a mixture of pain and awe.
“You do know who that is, don’t you?”
The whole world stops as I listen, and I shake my head in disbelief, making it look as if I’m saying no, when I mean yes.
“SHORTYYYY! COME ON, BOY! WHERE ARE YOU!”
In what feels like slow motion, I rise from the bed and hurtle toward the window. The scent of scrambled eggs wafts through the open door, and the wood is cold beneath my feet.
“SHORTY!!!! You come here this instant!”
I stare out the window, then turn to Melissa.
“Your sister’s been out there like that the last hour or so.”
Melissa sounds half-hysterical herself.
“I told you she could talk,” I say, adrenaline strumming my veins. It feels like that moment before a lightning bolt hit in the Hundred Acre Wood, with the hair on our arms standing on end and the air humming with electricity.
I watch Jenessa stomp through the snow, her curls whipping left and right. She disappears into the barn, but I can still hear her screaming at the top of her lungs.
“SHORTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”
It’s been so long.
“What’s going on?”
“Shorty’s missing. We’ve been out searching for him since seven. When Jenessa woke up without him, she came running downstairs, talking. It was the damneest thing. She suited up, and she’s been searching ever since.”
“That’s a lot of land to search.”
I fly past Melissa and down the stairs, stuffing my feet into the boots I abandoned just hours earlier.
Hesitantly, not in her usual spear-head-dripping-with-toad-poison voice, Delaney calls to me from the kitchen table.
“The snowdrifts will ruin those boots, you know.”
I jab my hands into my mittens and coil the scarf around my neck, pulling the hat over my head and whipping on my coat.
“Use my snow boots,” Delaney offers. “They’re right there in the closet.”
“Thanks!” Quickly, I switch boots. “How about your sunglasses?”
“Go ahead.”
I take them from the table and flip them on. I trudge out the door, and Melissa is right behind me, zipping her coat as she picks her way carefully down the frozen steps.