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I walked Kyrie home, the silence deafening, surrounding us like a thick fog in the night.
Before we left the trailer park, I’d grabbed a flannel from my trailer and offered it to Kyrie. She took it, pulling the fabric close around her. I knew she was stewing on her thoughts, her convictions, and conflicting emotions. Maybe regretting our new, strange group of friends.
Finally, when her house was in view, she spoke. “I’ve lived here my whole life, Nicholas. Hart Hollow is all I know. And, it’s not always enough. Sometimes I want to run away just like the other girls. Where I can be myself, without my parents telling me who I should be.”
I glanced at her and asked, “Who do they tell you should be?”
Kyrie sighed. “My mom wants me to be just like her. I think maybe so she’ll feel better about her life. She wants me to settle down with a nice man, maybe with a farm, and he’ll decide to preach the word of the Lord like my father. I’ll come over to my parents’ house on Sundays, and we’ll make pies together after morning sermons.”
“Do you think your father wants you to be like your mother?” I asked.
“Yes. Because then I’ll be manageable. He can understand me if he can control me. But I’m not like her. I don’t like the things she does. Not all of them …”
“Do you think the other girls felt the way you do? And they really ran away?” I asked, eyeing the perfect flowers in Kyrie’s yard in the distance, the pristine lawn. Everything about her life seemed perfect to me in comparison to the checkered history of my own, and all the things I could never tell my friend.
“I thought that was a possibility,” she said. “Because I could understand it. It was always there, just under the surface, that same feeling I thought they must have felt. And I thought,good for them, when my father lamented their wildness.” She laughed, sad and lost somewhere.
“And now?” I asked.
“I-I don’t know. The dreams, the nightmares. I just. I wonder if they felt it too.”
“Well, maybe we can find that out. Is it only the daughters of pastors? Or is it—”
“Is it just them who get noticed? Who get missed?” Kyrie interrupted, finishing my question.
“Yeah,” I said.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess we can find out. Let’s add it to the investigation list.” She sounded almost amused by our mission, like perhaps deep down she was enjoying it.
“You can handle being around them? The trailer park kids?” I asked, smirking.
Kyrie smiled in return and said, “It’s not that … it’s not … I don’t know. Maybe I should be nicer.”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be?” I joked. Unfortunately, the joke didn’t land, and Kyrie whirled on me.
“Yeah, it is what I’msupposedto be. No personality. Nothing beyond the good little church girl. I changed that with you.” She waved a hand at me.
I jerked my head back. “With me?”
“Didn’t you know? Girls and boys can’t be friends. Notteenageboys andteenagegirls. My dad hates it. Hates me hanging out with you. Can’t understand what I’m saying when I say we’refriends. He can’t fathom it. Because he and mom met when they were our age.”
“So, he thinks we’re secretly dating?” I asked.
“He thinks you’re going to deflower me.”
We both laughed at the absurdity of it all. Kyrie liked to touch me, and I always pulled away. But I saw it now as nothing more than her affection, the way she showed the people she cared about that she cared about them. The touch of a hand, the kiss of a cheek, a hug when she thought you looked far away. I didn’t know it then, but I loved her. I wasn’tinlove with her, but I loved her like a friend, and I’d never had a friend before. I’d had family, broken leaders, and those who took from me.
Kyrie didn’t want to take from me, she wanted to be close to me, and I’d been keeping her at an arm’s length because I thought she wanted me the way the women had. It wasn’t ego; it was instinct. Trauma manifested into a shield.
“I promise, I’ll never want to deflower you. I’ll save that for your future husband.”
Kyrie flinched at the word, and I didn’t understand it, not yet. So in the light of Kyrie’s front porch, I did the only thing I could think to do; I spoke her language. I pulled Kyrie to me and hugged her swiftly and tightly, letting her go just as her arms reached my back.
My face was an apology when I pulled away, hers was one of acceptance.
I thought I saw a curtain move behind Kyrie, and I stepped back. “Well, I’ll see you in school tomorrow. Let’s talk at lunch. We can get the twins to sit with us. Go over the plan,” I said. “The study plan,” I amended, louder.
