The Storm King(26)

But, back to the boutique. Once the Hatchet sees Nate in the door and pulls herself together enough to pop her eyes back into her head, she says hello and asks if she can help him with anything.

Nate tells her he’s here to pick up a shipment of glassware for his grandmother.

It’s crazy to hear him in a regular, everyday conversation. Talking about glassware. The collar of his jacket’s up, and his face is pink from the cold. His dark hair’s been pulled into waves by the wind.

He says the right things in exactly the right way, but this close to him I see that nothing touches his eyes. Something about him reminds me of a ventriloquist’s dummy. That calm face isn’t the real him, is what I think I mean. Neither is the polite voice, because how could it be? How can he make any sound but a scream?

In the back of that ambulance in April I saw a boy broken in every way a person can be broken, so who is this?

The Hatchet knows the shipment he’s talking about, and she leaves the counter to get it. She says a couple other things that make it sound like she’s flirting with him, which is just too disgusting and wrong for words.

As Nate turns to follow the Hatchet, he makes eye contact with me. Peering into his arctic eyes I can still barely wrap my head around the fact that he’s here. That he’s sort of helping me. That he’s almost smiling at me.

With Hatchet distracted, there’s nothing to stop me from walking right through the door. I mean, am I supposed to just wait around to get arrested? But leaving won’t help. Greystone Lake’s too small a town. A cop car will probably get to the house before I do.

I never noticed it before the accident, but this town’s a place hardly anyone escapes from.

Nate comes back with a box that clinks like a New Year’s party at midnight.

Mrs. Sackett tells Nate she’ll send the invoice to the Union. She tells him to have a good day and to say hello to his grandmother for her.

I remember the rest word for word, just like I remember every quirk of his voice and every twitch in his lips.

“I’ll also take that bracelet,” Nate says. He puts the box down so he can reach into his pocket.

“Oh, you don’t have to bother with that,” the Hatchet says. She glances at me, a blush somehow permeating her foundation, bronzer, and spray-on tan.

“It sounded pretty important.” His smile is like the noon sun, but his eyes are as cold as the lake. He picks the bracelet up from the counter and weighs it in one hand. I try not to stare, but I can’t help it.

“It’s the perfect Christmas gift for my grandmother.” He takes a credit card out of his wallet.

“For Bea?” the Hatchet asks. “She might have simpler tastes.”

“Most people don’t know what they want until they get it.” He glows with something I’ve never seen before. Something you can’t measure or map. Its own kind of magic. “If you could wrap it in something festive, that’d be great.”

The Hatchet might say no to anyone else, but Nate McHale isn’t anyone else. Dad saw to that.

The woman rings up the purchase and Nate signs the receipt like it’s an attendance sheet. Boom, four hundred dollars. I should be grateful, but it’s also sort of infuriating.

Nate gathers his things, and I can’t decide what to do next. If I walk out of the boutique with him, he’ll expect me to say something. To thank him. But hanging back with the Hatchet is dangerous. If she changes her mind about calling the police, there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

Nate thanks the Hatchet like a gentleman straight out of Austen and turns to leave without another word. I find myself following him.

“Young lady,” the Hatchet calls from the counter. The door shuts behind Nate, and I can already feel my mouth tighten into a look of pure murder. The plaster of her face is winched into as stern a look as it can make. “Come here again, and I’ll call the police.”

I can’t get out of the shop fast enough. It takes everything I’ve got not to slam the door, throw my fists at the sky, and scream out the boiling rage inside me.

Nate’s standing to the side of the door, his hand fishing in his coat pocket. I realize then that he doesn’t expect me to say a thing to him. My thanks would mean no more than my apologies.

He pulls a red stocking hat over his ears and looks up at the clouds. For a second his eyes mirror the colorless sky, and I understand that this boy is no longer of this world.

“I guess you’re going to try to give me that bracelet.” I’d felt a powerful need to say something, and this is what came out.

“You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?” These are the first words he’s said to me since April. He doesn’t even look at me.

He stoops to lift the crate of glassware from the ground. He’s stronger than he looks.

I try and fail to think of something else to say to him. I’m alone with Nate McHale, off my game and in his debt, but for some reason this is a moment I don’t want to end.

On my sleepless nights and lonely walks I’ve thought of a million things to say to him. Things to ask. Things to tell. Things to demand. Now every one of them flies away. Maybe this is what this journal was meant for.

My words and my fury were there a second ago. I don’t know where they’ve gone. He walks away. I watch him turn the corner, and he’s gone.

But I’m not alone. A gaze burns into the side of my head. I look across the dreary street and see Adam watching me through the open window of his black Mustang.