Wilder Girls(39)

Seriously

“Seriously.”

Why outside

“Dr. Paretta wants a little more color in your cheeks.” Teddy draws back the curtain. Ward awry, beds pushed to one end. “She suggested a walk. Outside was my idea. Close your eyes, though. I want it to be a surprise.”

   Teddy, eager and happy to help, and invisible to the doctors here, with their world narrowed down to my charts and me. Breaking rules, because nobody’s told him what they are.

I start to push myself up, but he rests a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll help you.”

He lifts my legs. Swings them around to hang off the bed. Hands cold through the suit, hair on my legs static and standing.

My jacket is stuffed in the cabinet against the wall, and Teddy helps me into it, does up the clasps before crouching down to lace my boots.

“Right,” he says once he’s finished. “We’re all set. Need some help getting up?”

I shake my head and stand up. I think I’m getting stronger. Even if I’m not, I don’t need help.

I carry the whiteboard, marker in my pocket. Teddy takes my hand. Guides me out and around three corners. I memorize them, lay them out in my head. When he says I can open my eyes, it’s in front of a narrow, dented door. Not all the way closed, and through the gap at the bottom I see grass just starting to die.

“Go ahead,” he says, and helps me lift my hand to open it.

   Wind pulling at me, whipping the hem of my hospital gown. So cold I know it’ll steal the feeling from me, but I won’t mind.

“Deep breaths. Nice and easy.”

I nod. Try not to gulp it down, the air, the spice and sweetness. Together we step out and let the door creak shut behind us.

A fence, the kind with wire across the top to keep you from getting out. Trees pressed up against it, their branches curling through. Between it and me, the ground is restless, cresting and breaking in small hills, splitting where the cold has reached deep. Turning brown and brittle.

“Come on,” Teddy says. “Let’s walk.”

My bare legs prickle with goosebumps, sweat chilling me to the bone, but we keep going. The closer I get, the clearer the fence is. Step, and step, and a give in my knees, and Teddy wraps his arm around my waist. At last, there with the forest encroaching. I wind my fingers around the chain link.

Camp Nash. It must be. If I squint, I can make it look like Raxter, like home.

Teddy says something. World too loud. I prop the whiteboard against the fence.

Can’t hear, I write.

He tries again—fuck, he says, it’s freezing—but I pretend I don’t hear, shake my head. Reach out, flick the fabric surgical mask over his face. I want him to take it off.

   “No way.”

We can go inside

If you want

“Hey, don’t be like that. We’re having fun out here, right?”

I learned when I was little. Quiet. That’s how to get what I want.

“You know I’m really not supposed to.” He waits. Then a sigh, probably, and he backs up a few steps. “Okay, but you stay over there.”

Because he is nineteen, because he isn’t thinking. Because I’ve practiced this smile enough times to know what it can do.

Teddy reaches behind his head, to where the mask ties, and fumbles with the knot until it drops. And there he is. Full lips. Jaw cut sharp. Teddy.

“Byatt.”

I wave, and he grins. I lift the whiteboard, prop it on my hip as I write.

Can’t I come say hi

“No,” he says immediately, holding out a hand to ward me off. “You promised.”

I didn’t actually, and I make sure I look just right, a little shy, a little curious.

“Look,” he says, “I know it must be lonely in that ward all by yourself. I’ll try to come hang out more, but I—”

I hold up my hand, and his voice falls away. Not the same, I write. And then, when his eyes widen just that little bit, I add:

   You can’t catch it

He lets out a bark of laughter. “Is that true?”

Of course not. But I want what I want. No boys allowed

He’s thinking, biting his lip as he frowns at me, and then I see his shoulders drop like he’s let out his breath. Whether he knows it or not, he just gave up.

I take a step. Take another. He doesn’t say a word. Watches me, and when I see his fingers flex—they look ridiculous through that suit, but I won’t tell him that—I know I have him.

His mouth is slick and dark. I can see a nick on the slope of his jaw, can see the speckled blood he must’ve forgotten to wash off. I close the distance between us, lean my face in close to his. A piece of my hair slips loose, blows forward. Sticks to his bottom lip. I watch his eyes flutter shut.

It’s simple. It’s nothing at all. I inch that little bit closer, tilt my head up, brush my fingers against his chin, and guide his mouth to mine.

He kisses like he’s afraid of me. And he is, but I don’t think I mind it.

When he steps back it’s not far, and he wraps my hair around his fingers, his other hand brushing my hip. I can tell he wants to ask. It’s in every glance, every touch that’s barely there.

I lean the whiteboard up against his chest, and he laughs as I try to write upside down, so he can see without letting go of me.