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I open my hand, and Sketch places a coin against my palm. I look down and gasp. ‘Half a crown.’ I shake my head. ‘We had such a lovely day.’
‘We did have a lovely day, didn’t we?’ Sketch presses his back firmly into the driver’s seat. ‘And what do you think your father might say about that?’
I exhale sharply. As degrading as it is to take Sketch’s money, my father will be expecting me to hand over my wages for my day’s work as soon as I walk through the door.
‘I hate this,’ I say. ‘I hate that you have to pay my father off for a chance to kiss me.’
‘Don’t say that, Annie.’ Sketch frowns. ‘Don’t make it sound dirty or cheap. Don’t spoil what we have.’
‘Today was wonderful, Sketch, but I can’t do this,’ I say. ‘I can’t have a picnic and run through the fields laughing and joking and then take your money as if I’ve worked hard all day. It’s dishonest.’
‘What are you saying, Annie?’ Sketch asks. ‘Don’t you want to see me again?’
‘Of course, I do. I’d see you every single day if I could. But not like this. We’d be living a lie.’
‘Then let me talk to him.’ Sketch stiffens, and his broad shoulders suddenly seem to span a little wider as he reaches for the door handle. ‘Man to man. No more nonsense or lies.’
‘Are you crazy?’ I clutch Sketch’s arm and my nails dig into the cool, black leather of his jacket. ‘He’ll kill you.’
‘Your father is a bully. Let’s see how he likes to pick on someone his own size,’ Sketch snorts. ‘I’m not afraid of him, Annie.’
I release Sketch’s arm and hold my breath.
‘But I am.’ I finally exhale. ‘I’m afraid of him.’
Sketch’s fingers uncurl from around the door handle, and he twists in his seat to face me. He reaches for a strand of my flyaway chestnut hair and sweeps it off my face and tucks it behind my ear.
‘I don’t want you to get out of this car and walk into that house,’ he says. ‘Not when I know there’s a monster inside.’
‘That monster is my father, Sketch. That house is my home. I don’t have a choice.’
‘Annie, you can’t live like this. You can’t spend your whole life looking over your shoulder.’
My cheeks flush. I don’t want to have this conversation. Especially not when my father could walk outside at any minute. I should have got out of the car the moment it stopped. But like a magnet, I’m drawn to Sketch. I clutch at every second we have together. Even now, when I feel heat climb the back of my neck as I worry that my father will appear at any moment, I still can’t seem to do something as simple as open the car door and step out.
‘I see the fear that flashes in your eyes sometimes, Annie,’ Sketch says. ‘You try to hide it with a cute smile, but I still see it.’
I shake my head.
‘I saw it today,’ Sketch continues. ‘At the orchard. You were terrified. It broke my heart.’
‘I didn’t know where we were going,’ I say with a shrug. ‘You caught me off guard.’
‘That’s the idea of a surprise, Annie,’ he says. ‘You know, the unexpected.’
‘It was a lovely surprise.’ I’m quick to smile. ‘I am grateful.’
‘What about now, Annie?’ Sketch says. ‘I see fear in you now, and you haven’t taken your eyes off the front door since we got here.’
Sketch grabs the door handle again. His grip is so tight this time his knuckles whiten and his hand shakes. ‘It’s not right, Annie. Your father shouldn’t make you feel this way.’
My eyes dart back and forth between Sketch’s hand and the front door, making me dizzy. Sketch looks like he might burst out of the car at any second, march up to my house and punch my father straight in the face. Part of me almost wishes he would; give my father a taste of what it feels like when a fist smashes into your eye or collides with your nose. But I know an outburst like that would do more harm than good in the long run. Deep down I know Sketch understands that too.
Sketch’s eyes are on mine. Behind the anger and frustration, I see pity. I’ve seen him look at me this way before when we were just a couple of innocent children. The hairs on my arms stand to attention like obedient soldiers as memories of our childhood come flooding back to me. I remember the time Sketch told the cranky old headmaster that he lost his spelling copy. He hadn’t. I’d misplaced mine. Sketch slipped his copy into my schoolbag. He took two lashes from the headmaster’s cane across his palm instead of me. I offered to kiss his hand better on our walk home from school that day, but Sketch stuffed his hand in his pocket and assured me it didn’t hurt.
‘I abandoned you once, Annie,’ Sketch says, his voice low, like his head, his words rattling up from somewhere deep in his chest. ‘The guilt still eats me up to this day. I’ll never abandon you again. I promise.’
‘Sketch, that was a long time ago,’ I whisper. ‘We were just a couple of kids. You had to obey your father. You wouldn’t have been the boy I admired if you didn’t.’
