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But he stares at me, expression unfathomable. “A dead bird?” he assumes, though to his credit I can see he had tried to think it over.
“A really,reallybad omen,” I correct him flatly. “Especially the night that Emily died.”
“Which, I’ll remind you, they ruled an accident,” Phoenix slips in almost casually.
“Except that it’s starting to feel like no one believes that. Cops don’t show up at your door for accidents, Phoenix.” My eyes narrow, brow furrowing slightly. “Would you tell me if you knew something about their deaths?”
The question stretches between us, long enough that I regret asking it when his lips finally part and he leans in closer, so he can see me in the waning light of the park. It feels even darker here, against Agnes’ tree, with the branches obscuring most of the light that tries its hardest to make it to us. And what the limbs don’t block out, Phoenix’s body does.
“Of course not,” he murmurs, and I swear I can feel his breath against my lips, making my heart leap for the confines of my throat, as if choking me is the safer option. “Why in the world would I do that, when you can barely admit that you agree they deserve it?”
My mouth opens, then closes. My lips feel hot from the hiss of his words, and I wish,God, I wish I could back up or at the very least climb the tree from this position. “I never said they didn’t,” I point out carefully. “I’ve neveroncecheered for their innocence or picketed for them not to be in trouble for what they did.”
“And what did they do? Everyone around here is too afraid to say it. I think they worry that saying it out loud will make it real.Will make them realize how bad it was. Too bad for us that we can’t help but know it’s real, huh, Bailey?” This time I know it’s his hot, burning breath on my lips, hotter still with the heat of his hate-filled words. “So, what did they do?”
“Why are you doing this?” I challenge instead. I can feel my limbs shaking from the effort of not collapsing into a puddle of nervous fear on the ground, and I wonder if Phoenix can see how close I am to breaking as his eyes rake over my form.
“Because I want to know who the Bailey that still lives in this town is,” he tells me smoothly, reaching out his other hand to grip my shoulder. “The Bailey that had to be carried out of the courtroom before she could kill Emily herself, or…” He looks at me, disappointment glazing over his eyes. “The Bailey that can’t even say what theydid,thanks to staying in this town for too long.”
“What was I supposed to do?” My response is a sharp hiss, as if I’m not avoiding the question. “I’m not like you, Phoenix. I can’t justleaveand expect to have people gravitate to me for my looks and my personality. What was I supposed todo, when I don’t know how to bealone?”
I throw the words between us like a burning, boiling hot potato and leave it there. I’ve never been any good at being alone, and he knows it. He’s known it since the first day of kindergarten when I stuck to Daisy like glue and half-transferred to him the moment she brought me back to her house.
He’s always known, but he’s never made fun of me for all the times I needed Daisy’s reassurance, or his. He’s always known my brain works differently, and yet unlike a lot of people I could name, has never, not once, held it against me.
When he looks away, I think that I’ve won. Or at the very least, brought this discussion to its natural end. A stalemate that was inevitable all along. He knows why I didn’t leave. I know how he feels about everything; me included. But when I take one step away from the tree, expecting him to step back and let me go, he surprises me with a hand at the base of my throat and a sudden closeness that I’m definitely not expecting.
“But you didn’t answer my question, Bailey,” he murmurs against my skin, his eyes no longer the cool, dark sapphire of a cold gem but instead, are somehow molten night skies that burn with accusation and curiosity. “Which one are you?”
He’s not literally asking. I get that much. My hands shake as I bury my fingers in the tree again, but something in his gaze spurs me forward until the fingers of one hand are gripping his outer hoodie, and my other is around his wrist.
“They told Daisy and me that the only way we’d have friends is if we did what they said,” I grit out, though it’s hard to look at him when I do. “They told Daisy that—Don’t make me say it, Phoenix.”
“Tell me what they said,” he demands, his hand tightening ever so slightly on my throat, and his other gripping my wrist that holds his hoodie.
“They told Daisy that she’d really have to work for it, since her birth mother gave her up because she was unlovable. It was…” The wordsdumb kid shitdie on my tongue, because I know that’s the comment that did it for Daisy and had us on the too thin ice of the pond in the woods on a day too warm to trust it hadn’t melted.
The red of the flag stuck in the middle by Emily the night before is still as vivid in my memory as it had been, and I close my eyes on it as I try to pretend I can’t feel how Phoenix flinches against me at the cruelty in my words. I hate having said it. I also hate that he asked.
“Don’t make me do this to you,” I whisper, suddenly feeling like I’m the one who has him by the throat, instead of the other way around. I hate the feeling enough that it makes my teeth grind harshly, but when he looks up at me, there’s clear conviction in his gaze, instead of the sorrow I’d thought to find.
“Nothing you tell me could ever hurt as much as Daisy’s death and hearing it the first time around,” he promises me. “But you don’t have to go on—”
“So they told us, go get the red flag. That’s all,” I snap, eyes burning into him. He wanted to hear it, and I’m not going to swallow the words now. “Bailey can even go with you, Daisy. It’ll be easier with two of you. Except no one mentioned the ice had been cracking. Or that two of us going onto it was a death sentence. And we werefourteen,like fuck, Phoenix. We were kind of dumb, sure, but I definitely don’t think we were the problem when you didn’t get to hear the social threats Emily’s friends made. We were so fuckingafraidof being outcasts that we walked right out on that ice. And when we fell in, you know what they did?”
God, I wish I could stop talking. I wish I could stop, but I can’t. Even when Phoenix’s hand drops from my throat and I inexplicably surge forward to hold on to him, to turn us and presshimback into the tree like the spirit of Agnes has possessed me.
“Theyleft. I yelled for them. Did you know that? Were you there in the courtroom when I begged Emily to tell me why she, Jayden and Evan ran away?” I barely notice when his hands come up to cup mine, though he doesn’t try to push me away. “Is this what youwant?” Heat sears my cheeks, and with a jolt, I realize I’m fucking crying.
God, I feel so weak.
“No,” he tells me, his voice soft. “I never liked seeing you cry, Bailey. I hated it every day in that courtroom when you were all wrapped up in bandages. And I hate it now.” He moves forward, like he’s going to push me away, but instead just presses his forehead to mine and sighs, the tension leaving his body.
As if it’s a signal, my body does the same, the fear and anxiety and anger drain out of my feet and into the ground under the giant tree. “I’m not sorry though,” he admits, but I don’t open my eyes to see if he’s smiling. It sounds like he is. “Because now I know exactly which Bailey I came home to.”
I think he’s going to kiss me.He’s so close to me, and I can feel the heat from his body radiate into mine as I open my eyes to stare up at Phoenix, my childhood dragon and teen crush. Clearly, I should’ve made a move on him sometime between the grief, counseling, and him emancipating himself for an early escape from Hollow Bridge.
“Do they deserve to die, Bailey?” he asks, leaning forward so that when he speaks, his lips brush my forehead. “Do they all deserve to have ‘accidents’ like Emily and Jack?”
