Ouch. I’m sure she doesn’t want the truth. “A few.”
“A few hundred? A few thousand?” She laughs. It’s a tinny, hollow sound.
“A few,” I repeat.
“Does it get more common feeling after a while? Like your heart stops feeling like it’s going to beat out of your chest after you’ve done it a few thousand times?”
I chuckle. “Not if you’re doing it right.” I adjust my body, hunching over my lap a little. Her whispered words and heat-filled glances are affecting me, and I’ll be damned if I want her to see it. “You feel like yours is going to beat out of our chest when you kiss a man?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Then why are you asking?” I ask.
“I feel like that now,” she says. She gets up, and I want to grab her and pull her to me. “I had better get to bed.” She stretches, and I can see the little strip of skin between the bottom of her shirt and her jeans. I reach up and tug her shirt down. She covers her belly with her hand, like she wants to block my touch.
She stares into my eyes. She doesn’t say a word. “Can I kiss you yet?” I blurt out. God, you’d think I’d never seen a girl before.
“No.” She laughs.
“Can I keep asking?”
She nods. It’s a quick jerk, almost imperceptible, but she’s biting her lower lip and smiling. “Good night,” she says.
“Good night,” I call to her retreating back. She walks into the darkness until it swallows her up.
Reagan
My knees are still wobbly when I get to the house. I go in the kitchen door and find my parents sitting at the table with cups of coffee. They’re talking quietly.
“Have fun?” my mom asks. She stares at me over the rim of her coffee cup. She looks a lot like me, with her dark-blond hair and her sun-kissed skin. My dad says she looked just like me when they met. Her hair is completely straight like mine, and she’s tall and willowy like me, even after all these years.
I nod in answer to her question. “We were roasting marshmallows.”
She quirks an eyebrow at me. “That’s what they’re calling that now? When I was young, it was just called flirting.”
Heat creeps up my face. “I wasn’t flirting.”
“Mmm hmm,” she hums. But she’s smiling.
“Let her be,” my dad growls playfully.
“What’s his name?” she asks.
I’m purposefully obtuse. “Gonzo.”
My dad snorts. “Gonzo is the fifteen-year-old who was hanging out with Pete, the mentor for the boys from the detention center.”
“Pete, huh?” Mom asks. Mom knows that Pete’s the one who found me. “What’s he like?”
I shrug.
Her eyebrows draw together. “You get any strange vibes from him?”
“Mom,” I warn. “Leave it alone.”
“Pete’s a mentor? Or is he an ex-con?” Mom looks curiously at Dad.
Dad nods. “He’s out of jail on parole.”
Mom inhales quickly. Dad shoots her a look. “He didn’t do anything violent, did he?” Mom asks. My heart stops. It trips over in my chest and then stops completely. I don’t dare to even breathe until I hear the answer.
“I wouldn’t have admitted him if he was violent,” Dad says. He points to a stack of folders by his elbow. “I just finished going through his file again, to see if there’s more I can do to help him.” He jerks his head toward it. “Want me to give you an overview?”
I shake my head. “I don’t need to.” I’d much rather hear it from Pete. “He seems nice.” I glare at Dad. “Even though Dad threatened to chop his nuts off.”
Mom snorts into her coffee.
“Hey, it works,” he says. But he’s grinning.
Mom bumps my elbow. “How are things going with Chase?”
I shake my head. “He’s not my type.”
My dad says in a singsong voice, “But Pete’s her type.”
I pick up the stir stick he discarded on the table and throw it at him, but a grin tugs at my lips. “He was very nice. And I promise not to get pregnant.” I get up quickly while he’s still rolling that around in his head. “Good night,” I chirp as I start up the stairs.
“It’d be hard for him to get you pregnant if I chop his nuts off!” Dad yells to me.
I laugh and shake my head.
I stop at the top of the stairs and listen. “They were awfully close there by the fire,” Mom says. “I was watching out the window.” There’s a quiet pause. “Did she let him touch her?”
“No, but she touched him.” He heaves a sigh. “She didn’t even try to punch him in the throat.”
Fine. I can be a little aggressive. It all started after my attack with some self-defense classes. Then I realized I’m really good at martial arts. I can’t help if it some people make me want to drop-kick them.
“That’s a start,” Mom hums.
I shake my head. I’m not starting anything. He’s just a man that doesn’t make me want to run in the other direction. That’s all he is. He’s nothing more than that.
It’s strange, because if I judged him based solely on his appearance, I’d be running away as fast as I could.
“He’s a good kid, it looks like,” Dad says on a heavy sigh. “He made a stupid mistake.”
“He’s kind of hot with all the tattoos,” Mom says. She giggles, and I hear my dad growl. She shrieks, and I walk away. They don’t need an audience for that part.
I stop by Lincoln’s room on the way to mine and knock on his doorframe. “Enter,” he calls, even though the door is open. He’s sitting on his floor stacking blocks to make a tower. But Link’s towers are not like other towers. They are complicated works of art based on numerical theories and stuff I don’t understand.
“You have fun at camp today?” I ask. We were only there for setup, and camp won’t truly begin until tomorrow, but he got to walk around and look at the people he’ll see in the morning. I step into his room and sit gingerly on the edge of a chair.
He nods. He looks in my direction, but he doesn’t make eye contact. He doesn’t look people in the eye often. When he does, it’s usually a mistake. And often ends in a meltdown.
“Did you meet any nice boys?”
He nods again. He only talks when he wants to.
“I love you,” I say. He looks up, almost meeting my gaze. Instead, his eyes dart toward my ear.
“I love you, too,” he says quietly.
Pete
The fire is hot against my legs, making them itch. I scratch, the sting of my fingernails easing some of the discomfort. I have been sitting here since she left, and it’s been a little while. For a few minutes there I thought she might come back. Hell, it’s probably entirely in my head; she’s not interested in me. I look at the big house where she lives. It’s f**king perfect. White picket fence. Acres of land. Rolling pastures. A regular Anne of Green Gables. I didn’t read the book. I watched the PBS series when my mom was watching it. It came on after Sesame Street. There was nothing else to do but sit with her and watch it. My brothers gave me a hard time about it, but I didn’t care.
The log I’m sitting on shakes as someone sits down beside me. My heart leaps until I realize it’s just Phil. He runs a hand through his too-long hair and groans. “How’s it going, Pete?” he asks.
The fire is just embers now. It’s still hot, but it’s not flaming. “Going okay.”
“You did a good job tonight.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“The camp actually starts tomorrow.” He looks at me. “You ready?”
“I guess.” I shrug and kick at a rock with my toe.
“Did I see you talking with Bob?”
I look up. “Who’s that?”
He points toward the big house. “Bob Caster. The owner of the farm.”
“Oh, yeah.” I’ve never heard him called Bob. “He caught me talking to Reagan.” I smile. Just the thought of her makes me grin, and I haven’t laid a finger on her.
Phil whistles. “Better be careful. I’ve seen him take down boys a lot bigger than you.”
I snort. I can’t see that happening.
“You remind me of him when he was younger. He was a big, scary kid with a whole lot of attitude.”
“You’ve known him that long?”
“Twenty-five years ago, he was you.” He nods when I look at him.
“Me?”
“Straight out of prison, full of piss and vinegar, and ready for a fight. He had an attitude bigger than anybody’s I ever met.” He laughs. “I was his parole officer.”
“Wow,” I say. “What did he do to end up in prison?”
He shrugs. “Stupid mistake, just like yours.”
“And I don’t have an attitude,” I correct. I’ve behaved myself pretty well. My brothers will kick my ass if I’m disrespectful. Particularly Paul.
“You have a real talent with kids. Particularly special needs kids. You ever consider social work? You could help a lot of people.”
I’ve never really given it any thought. I’ve been afraid to plan a future for fear that something or someone would step in my path before I could start walking. “I don’t know,” I hedge.
“Think about it. You have time.” He pauses for moment, but it’s not uncomfortable. “What are your plans after this?” he asks.
I shrug. “Maybe college. I don’t know.” I got my GED behind bars, but college is expensive and we don’t have much money. “I work with my brothers at the tattoo shop.” I look up at the big house. A light just came on in an upstairs window. I wonder if it’s Reagan’s room. Phil smiles when he sees the direction of my gaze. “What’s going on with Reagan?” he asks.
“Nothing.” Yet.
“You like her?” He’s like a dog with a bone. Going to gnaw that bitch into submission.
I shrug.
“Be careful with her, okay?” he asks.
“Why? What’s wrong with her?” Does everyone know what happened to her?
“She’s wary of men.”
“Then she’s in the perfect f**king place to stay away from them.” A camp full of men and boys. That’s smart.
“She’s here for the kids.”
“I’m here for the kids, too,” I remind him.
He nods. “Just be careful.”
I plan to.
He stands up and stretches.
“It feels odd, being out here,” I say quietly. For two years, I’ve been locked in a cell. “I don’t quite know what to do with myself.” I look around. “Particularly with all this wide-open space.”
For two years, I had no choices. I ate when people told me to eat and showered when people told me to shower. This place is the opposite of confinement, and I’m feeling a little out of sorts about it.