All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(126)

Becca sighed. “Go home,” she said, giving Emmett a push. “Can’t you see that he needs to be alone?”

“What about you?”

“I don’t count,” she said. “Go get a table at Mulholland’s.” When I looked at her, she added, “I’m not passing up a free meal at the best steakhouse in town.”

Emmett smiled, and it was a smile like autumn: all vivid red, but ready to fall. “Go on, then. Rest up, because you’re sure as hell not going to get rid of me again this easily for a long time.”

He drove off, leaving Becca and me alone. I started towards the road, and Becca trudged alongside me. We walked that way for a while, and she looped her arm through mine, and then we kept walking. The sun had slipped even lower, and now that burning on the horizon had shrunk to a line, as though God had dashed it out with a felt pen. In that light, everything grew smaller, older, shoddier. Vehpese looked like the kind of house that a good kick from a mule will send tumbling over.

“You want to tell me what I don’t know?” Becca asked, her head against my shoulder as we walked.

I thought about River. “No.”

She squeezed my arm, and we went on.

At the hospital, she let go of me and kissed my cheek, right where Emmett had the night before. I wondered what she would say if she knew. Probably something about how she’d known all along, and then she’d roll her eyes and it wouldn’t seem to matter so much.

“Good night,” was all she said, though, and I said goodnight, and she turned back the way we had come, heading for a warm restaurant, a good steak, and the sparkling company of Emmett Bradley.

As I entered the hospital, my mind went to Austin. Not because of the kiss; I told myself there was nothing I could have done differently, although a part of me wondered how much I believed that. No, I thought about Austin because I knew what was coming. I knew what all this silence meant. I knew why he was avoiding me.

He was getting ready to break up with me. This is how it had been with Gage at the end. The absence, the silence, like someone had really gone to work on him with an eraser and all I could get was the leftover graphite smear. Austin’s brother had almost been killed because of me. Austin had killed someone because of me. I wasn’t sure which of the two was worse, but I knew that both were unforgivable. He was just working up the courage to tell me.

And it would be ok. I would pick up the pieces. I’d hold onto those pieces for as long as I can, until the shards had cut my hands to ribbons from all that holding. I would, when it started to hurt too much, probably go to Emmett. But I knew that, in spite of all his flirting, in spite of his aggressive advances, there was a limit that Emmett had set. We would have fun, but when things became too serious, he would go too. And then—

It would be ok, I told myself as I took the elevator to the third floor. The shining chrome seemed extra bright today, forcing me to blink rapidly. A fresh, citrus smell, with an undertone of industrial cleaner, rushed into the elevator as the doors opened. It would be ok. Life would go on. It always did. Maybe DFS would move me out of Vehpese; after all, Ginny had told me that the arrangement at Sara’s was only temporary. There would be another place, another town, another house.

I don’t know why, but I was running down the hallway now. I had to see Temple Mae. I just had to see her, and I had to know she was ok, and then I could leave. Not just the hospital, but Vehpese. I just wanted to know she was ok, that was all, so why was I running? Why was my heart pounding in my chest like it was trying to break a rib? Why did my breath come in these huge, panting gasps, until I wanted to shatter a window and gulp down lungfuls of the night air.

As I reached the door to Temple Mae’s room, my sneakers squeaked to a stop on the linoleum. The door opened, and Jake stepped out. He was wearing plaid flannel again, he’d gelled his hair back into that stiff crew-cut; he was even sporting his belt buckle, the one that looked roughly the same size as the dinner plate. And he was wearing one more thing, too: a big, fat no on his face.

“I need to see her, Jake.”

He shook his head. “She’s tired. She’s not sleeping well. Some of it’s because of that head wound, but some of it . . .” He hooked his thumbs behind the belt buckle, spread his shoulders, and planted himself in front of the door.

“Please, Jake.”

“What she did—” Jake cut off, his face losing its color. When he started, his voice was quavering, and it sounded about eighty years older than it had a moment before. “I know you did something. I know you stopped him. Somehow you made him stop, even before Austin got there. What are you?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I want to talk to Temple Mae.”

But Jake just shivered those big shoulders and shook his head again.

I nodded. Facing Jake, knowing the pain that Temple Mae was facing, that had helped. The walls didn’t press against me quite as much. My breath came easier. I ran a hand through my hair and realized that, at some point, it had come free from its bun. “Tell her I hope she feels better. And tell her thanks, although I guess that doesn’t make it any less awful.”

Jake’s eyes were shining now, shining like they were under shallow water, like riverstones. He dug his thumbs deep behind the buckle. “What I said, at dinner. I never should have—” His voice cracked, and he stopped. Then, to my complete amazement, he stuck out one hand. “I’m sorry.”