Page 56 of What We Burn

Knox gives a single nod.

I hesitate at the threshold because apparently humiliation is a hobby now. “I’m not going to hurt her again.”

His eyes pin me where I stand. Calm. Heavy. Absolute.

“I know,” he says. “Because if you try, I stop you. Permanently.”

The way he says it is absent of heat. Just fact.

And maybe that’s what makes it real.

I nod once. “Fair.”

Then I leave before I can say anything worse.

The morning air hits me damp and cool, carrying salt off the inlet and the green smell of things left too long to grow. My sedan is parked crooked at the curb because I came here half out of my mind and apparently even my parking reflected it. I climb in, start the engine, and sit there with both hands on the wheel while the house stares at me through the windshield.

Somewhere upstairs, she’s sleeping in my hoodie.

That thought nearly undoes me.

I back out slow and pull away from Holden’s place like if I move too fast, I’ll split open and spill all over the road.

My house looks and smells abandoned—stale air, dust, the faint sweetness of fruit I left in a bowl to go brown. I open every window, then go straight outside before the silence can get its hooks in.

The yard’s worse than I thought. The lawn’s gone to seed, the grass past my ankles, dandelions flowering in smug yellow clumps. I drag the mower out of the shed, prime it, and yank the cord until it coughs to life.

For an hour I don’t think about anything. I mow in straight, overlapping lines—there’s an order to it, a rule, and rules are the only thing that’s ever kept me level. When the lawn’s done I move to the beds out front, kneeling in the dirt, pulling weeds by the fistful. The milkweed survived. Of course it did. Milkweed’s a weed itself, technically; you can neglect it for a month and it just keeps reaching for the sun.

I’m elbow-deep in it, sweating through my shirt, when a shadow falls across the bed.

“Eli?”

I look up, squinting against the sun.

Amy stands at the edge of the bed in black leggings and a neon coral tank gone dark with sweat, blonde ponytail clinging to the back of her neck. Earbuds looped around one hand. She looks between me and the mangled state of my yard and offers a sheepish little wave.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“You didn’t.” I sit back on my heels and wipe my forearm across my forehead, leaving a stripe of dirt there probably. “You running?”

She huffs a laugh and points down at herself. “No, this is my formal wear.” Then she sobers. “Oh my God. What happened to your face?” She gestures to the healing cut on my cheek.

“Nothing serious. What can I do for you, Amy?”

“I was wondering if you’ve heard from Sage.”

I keep my hands busy, breaking up a clod of soil. “We’re in touch.”

“It’s just—she hasn’t been home since the hospital. I know she’s staying with Holden, or whatever the arrangement is, and I’m trying not to be weird about it, but she’s barely texting me back.” Amy’s free hand moves when she talks, punctuating the worry she’s keeping light. “I get an ‘I’m fine, talk soon’ and then nothing. And I guess I’m worried. After everything. She doesn’t, like, blame me, does she?”

“Why would she blame you?”

Amy shakes her head, ponytail whipping. “I don’t know. Tyler said some stuff. Made threats. Before.” She trails off, and I fill in the before she can’t say out loud.

“It wasn’t Tyler,” I say, too fast, and wince internally because there’s no clean reason I’d have that information.

“How can you be sure?”