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The walk to my trailer wasn’t long, and I noticed Kyrie’s steps slowed as if she wanted to stretch out our time together.
I didn’t mind. I’d been itching for a long walk, and the heat had kept me from it. The evenings were cooling, however slightly, and wandering Hart Hollow was a routine I would welcome. When you were walking, you weren’t sleeping. You weren’t dreaming. My dreams were hands, open mouths, tongues lapping at my skin.
I shuddered at the thought.
Kyrie noticed. “Are you cold?” she asked, reaching for my arm.
I raised my arm before she could touch my skin, running a hand through my shaggy hair. “No. Just a chill. I don’t know,” I said.
We paused at a stop sign, words hanging awkwardly between us. Kyrie looked right. “Do you want to go up to the school?”
I glanced back the way we came, then toward the trailer park entrance. “Won’t your dad wonder where you are?”
“We won’t be long,” she assured me, walking toward the school, waving a hand for me to follow.
I jogged after her. “We spend every day up there, isn’t that enough, bookworm?” I asked, trying on a nickname for her. We were both bookworms. She just preferred schoolbooks, where I preferred fiction. And in books, friends had nicknames for each other.
Kyrie smiled when she glanced back at me. “Yeah. But it’s more fun when it’s deserted.”
We walked along the road leading to the highway, then crossed. There were no cars around, and no light reached us as we walked up the hill to the entrance of Hart Hollow. Once there, Kyrie turned left, toward the playground.
To the playground’s right were the softball and baseball fields. Hart Hollow had two sports. Basketball was the other.
Ahead of me, Kyrie ran toward the swings, leaving her sandals on the pavement before tiptoeing into the gravel.
She grabbed the chain of one of the swings just as I stepped next to her forgotten shoes. I stared at them, sketching their likeness in my head.
“Push me?” Kyrie asked, moving backward. She smiled widely when she let go, gravity propelling her toward me. Her dark braids waved with the wind, and her teeth were bright white against her complexion.
I nodded and walked around the swing set, admiring the way her dress looked in the fading summer light.
She swung back to me, and I grabbed the chain, ensuring I didn’t touch her hands. Her long legs kicked back and forth as she moved with gentle ease.
I was jealous of her. Jealous of the way this small town had shaped her. I wondered who I would have become if Hart Hollow had been where I’d grown up. Maybe I’d have tried to kiss her, had charmed her father at dinner, and maybe I would have helped her mother with the dishes. Maybe I would have happily said Valerie and I would love to join them for the Sunday service. Maybe I would believe in God.
I didn’t believe in anything except the dark, the wretched things that happened in it.
The sound of my name pulled me from my dark wonderings.
“What?” I asked, certain Kyrie had said it a couple times.
She glanced back at me as she swung. “I asked if you were ready to go home?”
“Sure,” I said, grabbing the swing’s chains, slowing her sway. My eyes wandered to the back of the school, the dark shadow that led around the gravel drive. I knew there were school busses back there—and the woods.
Trees were everywhere, surrounding the town like sentinels, and I wondered about their secrets.
Kyrie stood up, walking around the swing to me. “I’ve always loved coming up here in the evenings. But I don’t anymore. Not since Amber went missing. The only reason my parents let me walk you home is because you live close. So I just wanted to do this for a second. I hope you didn’t mind.” Kyrie’s voice reminded me of a piano, haunting and pretty when she spoke like this. I’d only known her briefly, but I felt drawn to her. Not in the way she was drawn to me, perhaps. But the concept of friendship … it was foreign, mystifying, and beautiful.
I smiled for her benefit, reaching for my back pocket involuntarily. My notebook was there, waiting. “I like it here. I know my aunt wants to stay, so this feels different from the other schools. Like, maybe I can put down roots. Maybe I’ll come up here sometime.”
“At night?” Kyrie asked.
I nodded. “I’ve always enjoyed walking at night. I like to clear my head. I haven’t had time to explore the town yet on foot.”
Kyrie smiled widely. “Come get me when you do.”
“I like to walklateat night.”
