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Years ago, before my accidents, I would be at my mom’s animal shelter when the lost dogs were reunited with their families. The owners were always so happy to get them back. They would hold onto the dog extra tight and cry with relief. Second chances make people more grateful and make them pour more love and care into what they thought they’d lost forever. It makes me sick that a little stolen girl doesn’t seem to be getting that same kind of love.
“Oh. Okay…well, if you do it again…climb up to my windows…be careful.” His eyes flash with a darker emotional intensity. “Afraid I might fall?” he asks and, again, his words seem like they might be hinting at something else entirely. “Yes,” I whisper. “Me too.” The rasp is deeper now, raw and scratchier. It reaches my heart and drips down to my thighs. I feel like melted butter. I feel like I’m dreaming. Are we talking about windows anymore?
“You got a phone?” he asks, his voice still low. The question throws me. “No. I have no one to call. My parents don’t want me to have things like that.” He scoffs and leans closer to me again, tilting his head down toward my ear. “Don’t be a prisoner anymore, Holly,”
She doesn’t know it, but I already have a car for her, waiting in the parking lot of my brother’s motorcycle shop. It’s just a little all-wheel-drive SUV with about ninety thousand miles on it, but it’s clean and dent-free, and it runs good. If she’s moving to New York, she won’t need a car anyway, from what I gather, but at least while she’s here, she’ll be able to get around like the adult that she is. In the meantime, I don’t want to think about her moving to New York because it makes me feel ragey.
John might be nice, but his eyes are hazel, not blue. He doesn’t wear soft faded jeans with holes at the knees with torn edges. Or leather jackets that smell like smoke and woods. He doesn’t have pictures in his skin, a storybook for me to someday read. And he doesn’t make my heart flutter. He probably doesn’t even own a soft blanket. He’s not prince material, and he never will be. Everyone knows there can only be one prince, and I’ve already found mine.
I can almost believe this girl could love me, scars, damage, ugliness and all. And oh, how ferociously I would love her back if given the chance.
“I have scars, too,” she whispers with a shaky voice. Gently, I brush my knuckles across her cheek. “Show me,” I whisper back.
took me weeks to make, melting down the coins from my jar and fabricating a band of thin, intertwining branches.
