The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(60)

“You can go and talk to him,” Larry said in a low voice. “The counselor said that would be helpful for both of you. But you remember what I said.”

He guided her to the end of a wide aisle between the geography and geology sections, a row of green-spined books that concluded in one of the library’s somber wooden doors with the gold painted lettering. The counselor was waiting by the door. Stevie recognized her from before, when Hayes died and Ellingham deployed therapists in all directions.

The reading room was a small spot, separated from the rest of the second floor by walls that were half-paneled in frosted glass. The original furnishings had been replaced with a gray love seat and four fuzzy beanbags and an equally fuzzy rug, just in case any of the other six hundred cozy reading nooks at Ellingham didn’t satisfy.

David had avoided all of these options and was sitting on the floor against the wall, once again wearing the two-thousand-dollar coat. His knees were partially bent and he was staring at his shoes. The counselor was hovering next to him on the arm of the love seat. She got up and came over to speak to Larry and Stevie in the doorway.

“Would you like to come in?” she said to Stevie, in that professionally calm way that therapists have.

Stevie stepped into the room cautiously, and David looked up. He was pale, his face all raw edges.

“Hey,” Stevie said.

“Hey.”

There was a dry crackle in his voice, but otherwise, nothing gave a hint about what had just happened.

The counselor backed out and shut the door quietly. Stevie found that she did not quite know what to do with herself. Her arms felt gangly and useless at her sides. She wasn’t sure if she did want to sit, but standing was getting weird. She considered perching on the arm of the love seat as the counselor had, but that was strange and clinical.

After an awkward moment, she slipped down the wall and sat next to him. There was warmth radiating off his body. The room felt humid. Considering all that had transpired between them that night, there was no reason to be uncomfortable. And yet, Stevie felt twitchy in her skin.

“They’re setting up a place for us to stay in the yurt tonight,” she said.

“Like camp,” he said. “Sadness camp.”

He clenched and unclenched his hand several times on his knee, then suddenly reached for Stevie’s and held it.

“Okay,” he said, coughing out a humorless laugh. “You told me not to go down there. I should have listened to you. If you say not to sneak in somewhere . . .”

Stevie could only concentrate on the feeling in her hand, the warmth of his palm against her skin, the message it conveyed. It was a need. A need for her strength. The sensation rippled up her arm and was transmitted to the rest of her body in a wave.

“She knew,” David said. “About me. She was the only one before you.”

“About your dad?” Stevie asked.

“We were a little drunk. I told her. I didn’t think she’d judge me for it. I remember we were sitting in the attic of the art barn. She was making a collage and she had a bottle of some German stuff that tasted like cough syrup and ass. When I told her . . . she laughed. She said it didn’t matter. She could have told people. I know she never did.”

David’s voice was thickening. Stevie stared at the floor, the original tiles, with their scars and dings of decades of students scouring the aisles. There was a storm brewing, something that felt like falling and spinning. She wanted squirrels to come flooding toward them. She was about to ask David how he had managed to get all those squirrels, when he began to sob.

She had absolutely no idea what to do.

Well, she did. The thing to do was to put an arm around him. Kissing him had been easy. This was pure and intimate and happening not in the dark of the tunnel, but here in the dim light, in full view of the books.

She began to sweat. She felt the swirl in her brain, the speed of life. Her promise to Edward King mocked her now. Befriend him. Take care of him. Make him stay. Make a mockery of every feeling she had about him to get what she wanted and needed so badly. She could no longer figure out if she had done those things with David because she wanted to or because it was all part of the deal, the miserable, evil deal. Edward King had made her into a liar. He had turned her into someone like him and everything that had happened tonight was tainted. If she touched David now, she would be complicit.

But she couldn’t leave him like this either. So she took his hand and squeezed it. She tried to make the squeeze speak for everything inside her, everything she couldn’t say. He squeezed back, then he fell against her in heaving sobs.

Stevie bolted herself to the wall, unable to move. This outpouring of emotion was making her panic. After a few minutes, he leaned back, wiped his eyes, and caught his breath.

“Fuck,” he said. “I’m tired of sitting up here. Let’s go to the yurt of sadness.”

He was entirely unembarrassed by what had happened. Not that he should have been. It’s just that Stevie would have been. David was free with the way he expressed himself. He stood and offered his hand to help her up, then continued holding it. They were simply together now.

Out at the end of the aisle, along the balcony, the counselor was consulting with Call Me Charles, who had been called to the scene. He had stripped the Charlie Chaplin mustache and hat and was wrapped in his normal black coat, but the strange pants and shoes were still visible underneath. Halloween was a weird night.