All the Little Lights(75)

“I miss the lights on the street. Seems like more go out every year,” Elliott said.

“Me too. But it makes the stars easier to see.”

He smiled. “Always looking on the bright side.”

“What were you doing in my backyard that day?” I asked, pointing at a photo of the old oak tree. “The first time I saw you, when you were punching our tree.”

“Blowing off steam.” I waited for him to continue. He seemed embarrassed. “My parents were still fighting a lot. Mom hated Oak Creek, but I was falling for it more every day. I’d asked to stay.”

“The day we met?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I felt sort of at peace around that oak tree, but that day . . . nothing was peaceful. The longer I sat at the base of the tree, the longer I tried to be calm and mindful, the angrier I got. Before I knew what I was doing, I was throwing punches. It felt good to finally blow off steam. I didn’t know you were home from school, though. Of all the times I’d imagined us meeting, it was never like that.”

“Do you do that a lot? Blow off steam?”

“Not so much anymore. I use to put my fist through doors pretty often. Aunt Leigh threatened to stop letting me visit if I broke another one. She taught me how to channel my anger in a different way. Working out, football, taking pictures, helping Uncle John.”

“Why do you get so angry?”

He shook his head, seeming vexed. “I wish I knew. It just happens. I’m a lot better at controlling it now.”

“I can’t imagine you that angry.”

“I try to keep it reined in. Mom says I’m too much like my dad. Once it’s out . . . it’s out.” He seemed unsettled at the thought.

He sat on the bed next to me, and I shook my head in wonder. There were so many different expressions in the photos—all mine. Angry, bored, sad, lost in thought—so many captured moments of my life.

“Trust me, I see at eighteen that it wasn’t okay for me to take pictures of someone without her consent. I’m happy to give them to you. I’ve never shown them to anyone else. I just . . . at ten, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I believe that still. That’s why I told Madison I came back.”

“Because you think I’m beautiful?”

“Because I’ve loved you for almost half my life.”

I turned to look in the mirror that hung on the wall behind his desk. My tawny hair had grown out ten inches since Elliott had taken his first picture of me. I looked like a young woman instead of a girl. My eyes were a boring green—I was perfectly ordinary, not the spectacular beauty he described.

“Elliott . . . I don’t see what you see. And I’m not the only one.”

“You think that’s why insecure girls like Presley and her friends bother you so much? Because you’re plain? Because you’re boring? Ordinary?”

“I am plain and boring and ordinary,” I said.

Elliott stood me in front of the mirror, forcing me to look at myself again. He was a whole head taller than me, able to rest his chin on top of my head if he wanted. His bronze skin was such a contrast to my peachy hue, his straight, dark hair like typed words on a cream page against my tawny waves.

“If you can’t see it . . . trust me, you’re beautiful.”

I looked again. “Fourth grade? Really? I was all knees and teeth.”

“No, you were flowing blonde hair, delicate fingers, with at least ten lifetimes in your eyes.”

I turned to him, sliding my hands under his shirt. “I miss how light my hair was when I was little.”

He stiffened; my hands on his bare skin took him off guard. “Your . . . your hair is perfect the way it is.” He was warm, the solid muscles of his back tensing under my grip. He leaned down, his soft lips pressing against mine. I took a step back toward the bed, and he froze. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Getting comfortable?”

He smiled. “Now you’re talking in question marks.”

I giggled, pulling him toward me. “Shut up.”

He took a few steps, his entire body reacting when I parted my lips and searched his mouth with my tongue. When I leaned back, Elliott went with me, catching both of us with one hand on the mattress. His chest pressed against mine, and I reached down to lift the bottom hem of his shirt. When the cotton fabric was halfway up his back, the front door closed.

Elliott jumped up, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s Uncle John and Aunt Leigh,” he said.

I sat up, embarrassed. “I should get home anyway. You should go to the party. I want you to go.”

He looked deflated. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“I’ll take a shower, then walk you home. Want some hot chocolate or anything while you wait?”

I shook my head.

“I’ll just be a second.”

He gathered some clothes and then disappeared behind the door of the built-in his uncle John had made. The water from the shower hummed, and steam began billowing from the top of the door.

I sat on Elliott’s bed, next to the pictures of me. There were so few where I was in a field or walking on the sidewalk or even in my yard. In most of the pictures, I was sitting on my porch swing, the windows of the Juniper watching over my shoulder. Never did I smile. I was always deep in thought, even when my father was in the shot, nearby.