Wilder Girls(35)

   “Show me how you normally stand.”

She bristles. A week ago I’d have said it’s because she hates to be told what to do. And she does, but I think she hates, too, to be seen as anything but strong.

“Just show me,” I say gently.

Reluctantly, she snugs the butt of the shotgun in against her left shoulder, barrel cradled in her right hand. She starts trying to hook the fingers on her silver hand around the trigger. But her fingers are too fine at the point, and they won’t catch and pull.

“See?” she says.

“Right,” I say, “but that’s okay. Now switch your position. Put your left foot forward and angle your hips.”

They teach us to shoot in what Welch calls a bladed stance, with the support shoulder to the target and the trigger shoulder to the back. She says it’s to make sure we hit right the first time, just in case the bullets stop coming on the boat and we have to make them count.

Reese adjusts, sets up with the shotgun lifted in her silver hand and her other hand waiting near the trigger. She’s holding her shoulders the right way, but you can tell it’s not how she likes it by the way her hips are still square.

“You gotta commit,” I say. “Come on.”

“I can’t really see this way.”

I laugh. “If I can see with one eye, you can see with two.”

She’s fussing, trying to get the gun to sit right, but she won’t be able to if she’s standing like that. I come up close behind her, reach out, my hand hovering over her hip. “Can I?”

   She turns her head, baring the delicate skin along the nape of her neck, and my breath catches. A moment ago it was nothing, this was nothing, just me and her the way we’ve been a hundred times before. But it’s not the same. Byatt gone, nobody between us.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “You can.”

I rest one hand on her hip, the other sliding to her waist. She’s warm through her jacket, alive and here with me, and if I couldn’t feel it myself, I wouldn’t believe it, but she’s trembling. Reese, stoic and sharp and steel, shaking under my touch.

“This way,” I say, turning her parallel to me. Her body learning the shape of mine, and I swallow hard. “Keep your form, though.”

She lifts the shotgun again, and together we guide it into place, my touch keeping her hips bladed, my head ducked close to hers. Her lashes are dark against her skin as she shuts one eye to focus her aim.

“There,” I say unsteadily. “Perfect.”

We hold there, her frame inside of mine, and then she relaxes. Just barely, and not all at once, but it brings her back flush against my chest. My heart hammering, beat after shaking beat roaring in my ears. I’ve never been this close to her before, never seen the scar on the side of her nose or the spot behind her ear where her hair sweeps away. It looks soft, tissue-thin, and I don’t mean to, don’t realize I’m moving, but I reach up and brush my fingertip over the vein that’s just showing, barely blue.

   Her head whips around. I snatch my hand away. Mouth open, panic rising. I can’t believe I’ve ruined it. Pushed too far, and got too close, right when we were just starting to figure out how to be friends.

“Sorry,” I choke out. Anything to get us back somewhere safe. “I shouldn’t have.”

She’s just staring at me, breathing shallow and quick. The cold catching in clouds around her, shotgun dangling from her silver fingers. “What was that?” she says at last.

I managed three years without giving it a name. But there she is, Reese with her starlit hair and her wildfire heart, and I knew what to call this last night in our room, her face beautiful and strange in the dark. I knew the day I met her, when she looked at me like I was something she didn’t understand. I’ve known every minute in between.

“Nothing,” I say firmly. Nothing, nothing at all. I can close this door. I’ve had plenty of practice. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

“No, Hetty, you have to tell me what that was.” She sets the shotgun on the makeshift table, never taking her eyes off mine. “You have to, because I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.”

“What do you mean?” I say, keeping my voice as light as I can. I can do this—I can pretend, explain everything away.

   She’s not falling for it.

“I mean you’ve been different with me,” she says, and I could swear she’s blushing, but there’s the stubborn push of her jaw, the fierce resolve that I know so well. “I mean, you’ve been looking at me like you finally noticed I’m here.”

Like I finally noticed her? God, she has no idea. She really has no idea. “That’s not—”

“So,” she presses, ignoring me, “I need you to tell me what that was just now.” A step closer, the cool shine of her braid washing over my skin. “I need to know if you’re where I am.”

My breath catches. She can’t mean it, can she? I’m not used to this, to the tight bloom of my heart. It’s been too long since I hoped for anything. “And where is that?”

“Here,” she says. She reaches out, tangles our fingers together. Watching me the whole time, and she sounds so sure, so confident, but I can feel her shaking, just like I am. Like she’s spent as long wanting this as I have.