Hawk doesn’t know.He can’t.If he did, he would throw his body across the door and set the city on fire to keep me from going.He’ll try to dam the flood.But floods come anyway.I won’t let Belinda drown so I can keep pretending I get to be saved.
In the car, he drives with one hand and holds mine with the other.
“You’re quiet,” he says.
“I’m thinking,” I reply.
“About what?”
“Moonflowers.”I don’t look at him.“About how some things only show their face in the dark.”
He squeezes my hand.“Then we’ll bring flashlights.”
I smile at the windshield.
Silence rolls with us for a few blocks.He turns onto a residential street lined with trees that make a tunnel out of the night.
An hour later, we pull off the dirt road into the driveway at Hawk’s place.
He sighs.“I’m going to do this right.”
“I know,” I say.
“Stay,” he whispers against my lips.
“I am,” I whisper back.
Later, I’ll slip into the bathroom and splash water on my face and meet my own eyes like a stranger.Later, I’ll rise before the sun and write three sentences on his kitchen notepad that will ruin him and save him in the same stroke.
But now…
Now I will stay.
Because this is the last time I get to choose something only for me.
