Shadowed Summer (17 page)

Just in case it had started bleeding again, I rubbed my knuckle against it. “Yeah, it didn’t hurt or anything.”

“You caught his nosebleeds, huh? That’s kinda weird.” Ben rubbed his palms together thoughtfully. “If that happened all the time, sure does explain why nobody cared about the blood on his pillow.”

“I think it explains something else, though.” This part I’d saved to tell myself. Leaning back to sit on the windowsill, I stuck my hand in my pocket to rub the smooth river rock. I wanted to be dramatic, to draw out what I’d realized until Ben and Collette both turned ashen and gasped, but I didn’t know how.

“Y’all wanna know who was in the window?” Ben nodded, and when Collette looked up, I broke the news. “My daddy.”

“Iris, that’s crazy,” Collette said, and with a bounce, she dropped to sit on the edge of Ben’s bed. She threw me a look of barely disguised disdain. “Your daddy wouldn’t kill anybody!”

That hook in my belly pulled again. “I was there the night Elijah died, and so was he.”

Ben asked, “Are you sure, though?”

I didn’t want to be—the thought of it barely fit in my head. But I’d been there. I knew. “How could I mistake him, Ben?”

“You could go to hell for saying that,” Collette said.

“Not for telling the truth.” I waved the rock at her, then stuck it back in my pocket.

Collette stood up. “It doesn’t even make sense.”

My voice sounded strained, like I’d swallowed hot tea too fast. “You saw those pictures of Elijah goofing with my mama. How he was always looking at her, how Miss Nan all of a sudden goes away.”

“And? Even if he
was
crazy in love with her, so what, Iris?” Collette tried to dismiss me with a casual roll of her shoulders. “That doesn’t make your daddy a homicidal maniac.”

“No, but I know for sure that Elijah’s mean, don’t I?”

Ben hissed softly. “What if he got tired of watching them?”

“If he tried something . . . ,” I said, and stopped. I couldn’t find the breath to say it.

“Your daddy’d have to do something about it,” Ben said quietly.

I had to turn away, drying my face on my sleeve before they saw me crying. I knew what I’d seen, and I wished I could burn it all to ash. Daddy was all I had.

Collette’s flat voice pulled me from my thoughts. “How come you’re just now figuring this out, now that we’re at
Ben’s?
”

I pulled open the window. “I knew before. I just hoped I was wrong.”

Before I could get outside, Collette stopped me with a scowl. “Liar. You’re making up stories, just like you did with the witchboard!”

It was a low blow, bringing up sins I’d already confessed, and her protest felt like a slap. “Excuse me?”

“No excuse for it.” Collette ignored Ben’s frantic waving to lower her voice as she walked up to me. She dug deep and pulled out something she knew would hurt. “You’re just trying to be special, and you’re not.”

Once, I’d gone so high on the swings that I slid out and lost my breath when I hit the ground, and that was exactly what Collette’s words did to me then. Gathering myself, I concentrated on the faded sports wallpaper, then managed to find enough breath to say, “Good night, Ben.”

He might have said something back, but I didn’t catch it. I’d already stepped out onto the roof, and I didn’t look back.

I knew the truth. I hadn’t picked Elijah; he’d picked me. It wasn’t even my spell that set him loose, but Collette’s. If I was special, it was because it was meant to be, and Collette would have to get over herself. She couldn’t be first all the time.

The night around Ben’s house smelled like honeysuckle, sweet and soothing, as I climbed down the trellis. I was careful not to let it bang when I jumped to the ground; if Ben got in trouble for having girls in his room, it wouldn’t be because I got him caught.

I just hoped Collette had the sense to feel the same.

chapter twelve

W
hen I called Collette the next day, she told me right over the phone that we weren’t on speaking terms. I tried not to let that bother me. I wasn’t about to apologize for the truth.

All along, I’d needed to go to Elijah—I hadn’t realized that until my vision. I had to get close enough to let him show me where he rested; then I could kiss him goodbye.

And yet, thinking about what must have happened to put him in my daddy’s path—it was strange to care about him still. To feel him everywhere I went.

He was strongest by the river. I sat on the shore and chucked rocks into it, making myself more like him. I blinked and held up a hand when a shadow fell on me. My heart jumped as I looked up into a boy-shaped silhouette, haloed by the sun. I settled again when he moved out of the glare and proved to be Ben.

He poked the ground next to me with a stick. “Can I sit down?”

“I don’t own the river.” I leaned back on my elbows to look into the water again.

Without a hint of grace, Ben flopped down at my side, crossing his arms over his knees and squinting into the distance. Sneaky patches of sunlight bared the pale freckles on his face.

“Smells like a storm’s coming,” I said to fill the quiet.

“Looks like it, too.” He pointed out the hazy sky with his stick, then swirled it around in wide curlicues. I think he signed his name in the air before looking at me again. “Collette’s still spitting mad this morning.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like that’s news.”

Disappointed, Ben said, “I’m serious, though.”

“Me too.” Rolling onto one elbow, I acted like I was queen of the world. Since he looked so whupped, I decided to needle him about it. “So how much trouble are you gonna be in when she finds out you came to talk to me?”

Ben made a face, tossing his stick away so he could thread his fingers in his hair. “She’s not my boss.”

I laughed under my breath. He sounded like he was in kindergarten and looked close enough to pouting that I expected him to stick out his lower lip. “You better not tell her that.”

“I don’t even think she likes me,” he said.

The sour in my belly soured my words. “Don’t be stupid, Ben.”

He turned his pale blue eyes on me, and from his brows to his chin, an unsettled wash of hurt crept across his face. “When did you get to be so mean?”

I licked my hand to scrub at my knees and offered up my only excuse. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“You’re not the only one.” Everything about him seemed to darken, not with anger but with heavy thoughts that sloped his shoulders and bent his back. “This was a lot more fun when it wasn’t real.”

A touch of guilt twisted low in me, and I worked harder at wiping my knees. “I didn’t mean to see what I did.”

Ben nodded, then knotted both hands in his hair. Wheat-gold stalks of it jutted between his fingers, and I finally realized what Collette meant when she said he was pretty. He had long, dark lashes and a softness to his mouth that made me want to stare at it when he talked.

He stole a look at me, so sad, and then turned to the water again. “I wish you hadn’t. It was good, getting to go away. Making things up.”

I stopped in midswipe. “We didn’t go anywhere.”

Ben tightened his fingers in his hair, dragged down a little more by that invisible weight. “My daddy hits my mama. He did. Not anymore.”

It was like falling, hearing a confession like that. I could only guess at what would make a man stop hitting, once he’d started. “ ’Cause she’s sick?”

Ben looked at me, hard. “ ’Cause the last time, me and Shea held him down and told him what he’d get if he ever did it again.”

“Oh no.”

“We meant it, too.”

A single thread of cold worked through my chest. I didn’t know Ben’s parents, but I’d seen them at church. They looked like happy people to me, Ben’s daddy tall and gold, his mama true Acadienne, pale skin, dark hair. They held hands in the pews all the time. I didn’t understand how those outsides could hide this inside.

I grasped for something, anything, to say. I tugged his wrist, making him free a hand so I could slip mine into it. I didn’t even think about it; he hurt and I wanted to make it better. “I think you did a good thing.”

“I can’t even tell anymore.” Ben looked at our joined hands; all I could see of him was the troubled curve of his brow. I thought he might be crying, but when he raised his head again, his face was dry. Drawing himself inward, he rubbed a thumb against my hand.

“Anyway, I ain’t ever gonna tell on your daddy.”

“I think he did it, Ben,” I said. “I really do.”

Saying nothing, neither one of us moved. We had a staring contest, and I thought I’d won when he closed his eyes. Instead, he pressed his mouth against mine, and it was soft. Dry and warm, too, a familiar gesture that felt strange for lingering.

I closed my eyes, just for a second, overaware of everything. My heart pulsed until it stopped on a single, captured beat, and I felt dipped in summer again, searing everywhere.

Pulling back, I swiped my lips with the back of my hand to rub in any mark he might have left behind.

“You better go home, Ben,” I said.

After the warmth of his mouth, I felt cold all over and couldn’t look at him. Elijah’d gotten himself killed this way.

No wonder he picked me—I was just as bad.

For a week, I had nightmares. I felt sick all the time, aching for everything missing, wanting to pull out my hair and grieve in loud, wrenching sobs. Any kind of penance would have helped, but I needed
things.

I needed Collette to be my other half again, but it looked like she was never coming back. I needed Ben to be some dumb boy who threw rocks at us again, and nothing else. I needed my daddy to be innocent and Elijah to stay dead. Most of all, I needed somebody to notice I’d shattered.

Plodding through my waking hours, I did my chores automatically and tasted nothing when I ate, until I suddenly burst into tears over supper. The salt didn’t improve the peas much, but Daddy finally moved.

“Sugar, what’s wrong?” He pushed his plate aside and slid his chair close to mine, wrapping me up in his arms.

Surrounded by the scent of his aftershave and the warm, strong cage of his hug, I cried harder. How could I tell him anything? How could I say I was being haunted? How could I explain kissing my best friend’s boyfriend?

How could I look him in the face and tell him I knew what he’d done?

My belly hitched with hiccups, and I had to fight my own throat to answer him. “I don’t know.”

Through my gulps and whimpers, I could hear him whispering nonsense promises, reassurances that everything would be all right, but that just made me cry harder. Nothing would ever be right again; that was one thing I knew for certain.

When I’d settled down to ragged gasps, Daddy pushed me back and reached for a napkin. He studied me, like he could read my mind, concerned as he mopped up my face. His touch was soft under my eyes but hard beneath my nose.

Balling that napkin up, he reached for another and handed it to me. “Blow your nose, baby.”

I was glad he didn’t hold it for me. Between honks, I apologized. “I didn’t mean to ruin supper.”

“We can have peas any day,” he said, taking my dirty napkins and throwing them away. Turning on the tap with his wrist, he washed his hands but watched me over his shoulder. “You know you can talk to me, Iris.”