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he touched her. “I need you to stay in here, ’kay?” Miss Becky had said once that he was only six months older than her six years, but he always seemed so much bigger, older than her, because in her eyes, he took up her entire world.
Remember? I promised I’d keep you safe forever.
I didn’t like to make unnecessary noises. An old habit I’d been unable to break and that probably would be a part of me forever.
Rosa and Carl hadn’t dedicated every moment of their free time to erasing a past full of nightmares only to watch their efforts fail.
auburn awkwardness.
They saved so many lives, but couldn’t save the one that meant the most.
wondered if it flopped on his forehead, and there was an unsteady tug at my chest as I remembered a boy I used to know years ago, whose hair always did that—fell forward no matter how many times he pushed it out of his face. A boy it kind of hurt my chest to think about.
“Mouse?”
remembered how he’d gotten it and my chest ached anew, because that scar symbolized a stale cookie and a shattered ashtray.
smile grew, stretching my face so much it nearly ached. Rosa might not have been my mother by blood, but she was everything a mother should be, and I was so damn lucky.
no longer sure I wanted to know what it meant, she sighed. “It basically translates to don’t look at her.”
He frowned as he picked up his pizza. “You’re not mute. And nothing is wrong with you. You’re freaking brilliant. Screw that shit.”
A burning sensation hit the center of my chest, and I told myself it was indigestion,
wasn’t.
Words were not the enemy or the monster under my bed, but they held such power over me. They were like the ghost of a loved one, forever haunting me.
How could it be just a nightmare? Nightmares weren’t real. This…this was.
“My name is Mallory…Dodge.” I drew in a deep breath, speaking to no one. “And I like…I like reading. And I don’t like…I don’t like who I am.”
“Mallory is the shit, though,”
“I probably shouldn’t have done that,”
for you.” I flinched as I took a step back. Not for me. Never for me. That giddiness I’d felt after sending them such a normal text vanished. The feeling wasn’t lasting, because normal was never for me.
Someone could record it and Satan could play it over and over, on an endless loop, to torture people in hell.
His lips brushed over the curve of my cheek, sending a rush of tight shivers down my spine. “I’ll text you later and we’ll talk about Saturday.” I thought I said okay. I wasn’t entirely sure. I might’ve just stood there and stared at him. But Rider smiled that smile that reached deep into my chest and wrapped around my heart.
forgotten all about Mr. Henry and Miss Becky, about Carl and Rosa calling the school, about speech and me not talking. I forgot about everything. Because it wasn’t that important. Something else was. Living life was.
Because that was how it felt growing up. Like Rider and I weren’t real. No one thought about us or worried. We were forgotten, left behind to virtually fend for ourselves.
I wanted to…I wanted to be perfect for him—for them, and I wasn’t perfect last night.
He lingered longer, as if following the path of my lips, learning it and committing them to memory. I wanted to do the same.
“Then how about this? Why don’t we skip Homecoming and plan for prom?”
And maybe…maybe it wouldn’t get better. Rider had said nothing lasted forever, but some things, some scars, ran too deep to ever fade away.
and Rider had kissed me then, a hard, almost brutal kiss that tasted like anger and fear. When he walked away, I wanted to follow.
