Opal (The Raven Cycle, #4.5)

by Maggie Stiefvater

The UPS man had very bright teeth and grew hair right on top of his face nearly over his mouth, hair that was longer than the hair on Ronan’s head and nearly as long as the hair on Opal’s legs. She had asked him once how she might get hair like that to grow on her own face and he had said “just keep trying,” which she thought was very kind and encouraging of him. She still liked him a lot, but she was no longer allowed to greet him ever since she had crept into the cab of his truck to take the box of dog biscuits under the passenger seat and the photo of his wife taped up by his gearshift. She’d eaten the first in its entirety and had bitten the eyes out of the second.

Since the weather warmed, Adam’s car sat in the driveway. Unlike Ronan’s car, it rested on blocks instead of wheels, and he spent a lot of time underneath it or folded under its hood. Opal came to understand that Adam’s car was supposed to be more like Ronan’s, but there was something wrong with it called shitbox.

The only thing that had ever made her blink away was when Adam had once encountered Ronan in the second-floor hallway. Ronan had been standing outside of his parents’ old room, one hand holding a cassette tape and the other clenched into a fist, and he’d been there for quite a few minutes by the time Adam climbed the stairs. Adam had taken the cassette from Ronan’s hand, working Ronan’s fingers loose and putting his own fingers between them. For a moment Opal, hidden, had thought they were going to kiss. But instead, Ronan pressed his face against Adam’s neck and Adam quietly put his head on top of Ronan’s head and they did not move for a long time. Something about this made Opal burn so furiously that she could not stand to look a second longer.