The urge to punish myself for every slip, every absence, every way I’d let the monster win, was a physical ache in my marrow.
I perched next to her, not touching, just close enough to feel the heat of her body through two layers of fabric.
She tensed, then let herself lean into it. The trust in that gesture almost gutted me. For a few minutes, we just sat there, neither of us talking, the only sound the brittle tick of the wall clock.
I wanted to say something beautiful, or at least honest. I wanted to tell her that every time I hurt her, it boomeranged back and flayed me alive, that watching her endure me was the only thing that made me feel real.
“Did you ever think,” I started, then stopped, not sure if I had the balls to say it out loud. “Did you ever think we could have been… I don’t know. Something better, if I hadn’t been such a fucking dick?”
She didn’t answer right away. She thumbed the edge of a page and stared at the warped laminate, like she was waiting for the right words to float up from under the plastic. “Sometimes I think about it,” she said. “But then I remember all the things you said, and it’s like—” She cut off, the words brittle as old leaves.
“I remember every single thing I ever said to you,” I blurted, shocking even myself. “I wish I didn’t. I’d give anything to take it back.”
She laughed, a harsh, small sound. “That’s not how it works, Caiden. If it was, I’d give anything to erase half my childhood. But it’s still there. It always will. But, if it makes you feel any better, I’m starting to find forgiveness with how you treated me.”
“That’s good, because I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.”
The confession dripped into the air, and she didn’t respond to that, and I let the words dissolve as they curled back into my blood.
I would spend an eternity making it up to her if I had to. She was the sun, and I was the moon, forevermore orbiting her.
36
CAIDEN
Seven yearsold
When I came back to school after suspension, Amelia cornered me. She had her arms crossed and a pouty expression on her face. I couldn’t help but notice her lips, how delicate and pink they were.
She waited for me at the water fountain, blocking it off. I tried to walk past, but she moved her body so that her sneaker hit mine, and then I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t see her.
“Why’d you do it?” she said. Her voice was a little rough. “Why would you even care?”
I shrugged. I’d practiced a million shrugs at home, in the mirror, and in the reflection of car windows, trying to get it just right so that nobody could see inside my head. “He was being a dick. That’s all.” My voice came out too high, so I coughed and tried again, lower this time, like a grown-up. “He deserved it. I hate when people try to act tough when they’re actually weak.”
She didn’t answer, just stared at me with her big green eyes.
Kids were swirling around us, yelling and pushing and already forgetting about the fight.
But she wasn’t forgetting. I could tell by the way her hands were balled up at her sides, white at the knuckles. She had a Band-Aid on her finger, a pink one.
I didn’t want her to think I liked her or anything. That would be the worst possible thing in the world. So I said, “Next time, just push him back. He’s all talk. You could probably kick him in the balls, and nobody would even care except him.” I tried to pretend I was bored, but my face was hot, and I could feel sweat prickling behind my ears.
She snorted, like she didn’t believe me. “You didn’t have to hit him that hard.” Her voice was quieter now, almost nice. “He’s probably gonna tell everyone you’re a psycho.”
I shrugged again, but this one hurt my shoulder. “Let him. I don’t care.” I never cared, not about stuff like that. My dad said if you show it bothers you, you just make it worse. “It’s not like anyone likes me anyway.” I kept my eyes on the floor, watching a dried worm curl up on the tile.
She didn’t move away from the fountain. “I don’t think you’re a psycho,” she said.
“I never said I was.”
She just looked at me, and I had to look back.
Her eyelashes were so long that they made shadows on her cheeks. It made me dizzy, like standing on the edge of the diving board and looking down at the water.
The longer I stared, the more she stopped looking like a girl and started to look like an accident you couldn’t look away from. I wanted to say something, maybe even a joke, but the words got jammed at the back of my throat. So instead I said, “You ever kill a bug for no reason?”
Her whole face rearranged, like she was deciding if I was kidding or just broken. “Like a spider?” she said.
