Sheltered Read online

  “I’m alive.”

  Yeah, but for how much longer? That black hole he’s burning is bound to suck you in. Any second, now. Any second…

  “When will your parents be home?”

  She wished he hadn’t asked that. She wished she didn’t know what he meant, either. He could have meant it in all sorts of ways, really—bad ways. Even possibly sexual ways. But she understood he didn’t.

  He knew. He really knew what would happen if they caught a boy in here with her. Not even a boy, really—he was all the way a man. He had stubble on his cheeks—rough, course stuff—and hair curling out of the top of his t-shirt and the big hand close to her face was worn-looking and all knuckle. As if he’d spent his life scouring dishes or maybe clawing his way up Mount Doom.

  However, she couldn’t help noticing the soft roundedness of his cheeks, and now that she wasn’t challenging him the mean line he’d set his upper lip into had relaxed. In fact his mouth looked almost…she didn’t even know. She wanted to say like a woman’s, but the rest of him—all jagged and bullish—contrasted too sharply with those soft curves. And then there was the haircut and the tattoos…up this close she could actually make out one on his neck, for God’s sake.

  What sort of person had a tattoo on their neck? She’d thought the inside of the wrist and the webbing between thumb and forefinger were tender places. The neck seemed like tissue paper to her. As if he’d blasted a confetti tower with a flamethrower.

  “If you’re having trouble speaking you should probably let me know somehow,” he said, because oh God she’d taken a thousand years to respond to him. He’d asked a question and she’d answered by staring and staring at him like a maniac.

  “Eleven. It’s always eleven on a Wednesday. Bridge with the Pattersons,” she managed to get out, though once she had, that familiar, brittle little voice at the back of her mind whispered, Yeah, but what if they change their minds tonight? What if, what if?

  It wouldn’t even be the belt, for a creature like this in the house with her. It’d be a hole dug in the garden and her in it.

  “Thought about taking you to the hospital, but call me crazy—didn’t think that would go down so well.”

  This whole thing wouldn’t go down so well, she thought in response, but of course didn’t say. He’d already exposed too much of her. Any more and she’d be naked in front of him, probably shivering and even more embarrassed than she currently felt.

  “Thank you,” she said, because those were nice, safe, expected words. He didn’t look as though he had expected them, however. His thick, dark brows raised, and she noticed yet another thing about him.

  He’d had a piercing in one of them. There was a mark there, a little strip of missing hair, where it had been.

  “No problem. Even scumbag drug addicts can do the right thing sometimes.”

  She felt her face heat.

  “I don’t think you’re a scumbag. Or a drug addict. I just—”

  “What?”

  Don’t jostle me, she thought, but it was too late for that. He’d started jostling her all the way back by the fence. She could feel him, creeping under her skin and shaking her all around.

  “Look, I’m not an idiot, okay? I know pot isn’t Satan’s weed, or whatever.”

  He flicked his gaze to hers, so steady and dark and too intense.

  “When did I say you were an idiot?” he asked, and she tried to remember. She really tried. Unfortunately, all she could come up with were vague impressions of him.

  “You didn’t. You just implied it. With your…earrings and your haircut.”

  He didn’t laugh, exactly. In fact, most of his reactions and his expressions seemed curtailed, somehow. Reined in. It only made it more obvious when he did smile, however. When he smuggled his laugh into a cough, behind his fisted hand.

  “My earrings and my haircut make you an idiot? That’s a new one. Usually my earrings and my haircut just make other people back away. Kind of like you did in the garden.”

  It struck her harder than she expected it to, him saying something like that. She didn’t mean it to or want it to, but it was there all the same. Like a small fist, direct to the chest.

  “I didn’t back away because of how you look. You look…” Fine? Fine just leads to handsome, then gorgeous, then other impossible things, and you don’t want to go down that route, do you, Evie? That route is barred to you, for all sorts of reasons. He’s cool. You’re not. He’s attractive. You’re not. He’s free. You’re not. “You don’t look threatening, or anything. I just… Did the Ryerson kid say anything about me to you?”

  She couldn’t think why the kid would have, but the fact remained—the punk seemed to understand way too much about her situation.

  “What sort of things do you think he would have said? He told me your name, and that’s about it.”

  She checked his face for a hint of mockery, but there was nothing there.

  “Just my name?”

  “We don’t exactly talk, me and Mickey Ryerson. It’s not like we have a ton in common—I mean, look at this neighborhood. These houses.”

  He gazed around at his surroundings with a kind of wonder in his expression. Just a hint of it.

  “Yeah, they’re really amazing.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And beautiful.”

  “Definitely.”

  “And worth a lot of money.”

  It was as far as she could go. He didn’t look away during the whole of the exchange, and she could hear it in his voice. That he knew what she really meant by amazing and beautiful and worth a lot of money.

  But the lovely part of it was—he didn’t say. He just started in on something else instead.

  “My apartment overlooks an alley where they slaughter chickens for the Chinese restaurant across the way.”

  She thought of feathers. Lots of feathers, fluttering in a dark, narrow space.

  “Do you ever see them do it?”

  “Sure. They don’t mess around—no wringing necks. A cleaver, straight through.”

  “They’re not supposed to be doing it though, right? They’re not allowed.”

  “A lot of people aren’t allowed to do a lot of things.”

  God, there were thorns around this conversation. She could feel them rising up, every time they got to something that seemed like stable ground. It made her want to close her eyes, but doing so didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Instead, she pulled her legs up to her chest. Bought herself time while she tried to think of a good subject change. Unfortunately, the only words that came were the ones that had been whirling around in her stupid head since she’d opened her eyes.

  “Did you draw on your shoes?”

  Of course she kicked herself immediately. She should have gone with I like the drawings on your shoes instead—and knew it. One sounded like an accusation, and the other sounded like she’d become a nice, normal person during the last ten minutes, instead of this accusatory asshole she was somehow being.

  He even looked at her that way. As though he couldn’t believe she was behaving like such a jerk after he’d carried her fat ass inside and put ice to her head.

  “I…yeah.”

  She wondered what word he’d wanted to put between I and yeah.

  You’re a judgmental cunt, probably.

  “It’s nice.”

  Inwardly, she rolled her eyes at herself. Even “nice” sounded like condescending bullshit.

  “I can’t tell if you’re serious or if you’re mocking me.”

  Her stomach turned over. One hand went to her face, even though she tried to stop it.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry—I’m…I don’t know. Bad at this. I’m all…”

  The right word wouldn’t come. I’m all stupid? Foolish? Panicked?

  “Uncomfortable?” he offered, and that seemed as good a term as any. “Wouldn’t worry about it. I’m the same.”

  “You’re uncomfortable too?”

  ��No—I’m bad at talking to people too.”

  “Oh.”

  “But probably for different reasons.”

  “Probably.”

  For some reason, her heart had started hammering in her chest. Her palms had gone sweaty, even though she felt sure they should have done so ten minutes ago. What was so scary about this, exactly? He’d been a drug addict before. Now he was just some guy who found it hard to talk to people.

  “I really do like your shoes,” she said, then felt worse. Her heart had passed her chest and moved on to hammering in her teeth.

  “Thanks.”

  “I like the…flower.”

  God, she hoped it really was a flower. What if he’d drawn something much more manly and impressive, like a skull and crossbones, and she’d just mistaken it for a flower?

  “Did a bigger version for class,” he said, and for a long moment she debated asking him what class he was talking about. She debated and debated and possibly also wrung her hands, while he went into his backpack and drew out an actual notepad, filled with…things.

  Pictures. He had a notepad filled with pictures, that he’d done with his own two massive bear paws, in interesting mediums like charcoal. And then he handed it to her as though he maybe wanted her to…he wanted her to…

  “Can I look in this?”

  She felt like an idiot for asking, but by now this was so far out of bounds of her real life she’d started thinking she’d fallen into a parallel universe. And for definite this was out of bounds of his real life. He’d just said he had issues talking to people, and yet somehow he’d just handed her his life’s work.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Was it stupid to feel honored? He’d probably think it was stupid. Likely as not he showed this to everyone, all the time, and never blinked an eye. She was just imagining that whole “life’s work, closed-down secretive person” thing.

  “Never shown it to anyone except my art professor before.”

  “Oh.”

  He hesitated, then just seemed to push the words out.

  “I guess there really is something about your face.”

  She thought about the boy again. The one who’d kind of followed her around a bit, and said weird things to her like, Hey maybe we could get an ice cream some time. Of course, she’d never actually gone with him for an ice cream, but that wasn’t the point.

  He’d still said those words to her. Those odd words that she just had to ask the punk about.

  “Is it because I kind of look like a silent movie star?”

  A hint of a smile touched his lips.

  “That’s not what I meant, but yeah. You do. Some guy tell you that?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I doubt you’d come to that conclusion on your own.”

  “Oh.” She glanced down at the notepad in her hands. At its curled corners and the slightly dusty feel of it, and then the hint of what it contained, beneath the half-torn front cover. “What did you mean then?”

  “You look like someone…someone trustworthy.”

  Her heart stopped hammering in her teeth, and started not beating altogether.

  “I am,” she said.

  She wanted to add other words after them, but couldn’t. Didn’t even know what they were, really. Instead, she lifted the cover of his notepad and looked at the first picture, while inside her heart continued its silence.

  “You like it?”

  He sounded vulnerable, she thought—though that didn’t seem possible. He still looked huge and jagged and hairy, sitting there on her mother’s couch.

  Strange, really, that he’d drawn something so beautiful. It was a flower, like the ink thing on his sneakers. Layers of petals, one inside the other until everything disappeared into a thick, dark heart. Like a maze, she thought, or a Russian Doll—something complex created from something so simple.

  And he’d done it in charcoal, like she’d suspected. Lines so dark and thick they looked like that black hole she’d imagined disappearing into, only moments earlier. The whole of it so him somehow, and yet so not him.

  He suggested devils, skulls, harsh masculine drawings. This thing was…heart poundingly good. She wanted to pluck it, and bury her face in it, and keep it in a vase by her bedside.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, then squirmed to think she’d actually used such a silly word. Perfect. Like what? Like Polly Pocket? Like a pretty coin purse with Hello Kitty on the front?

  But when she looked up at him, he seemed…relaxed suddenly. Almost flushed and certainly pleased. It made her want to turn the pages and look at the other drawings, but he stopped her before she got past page four.

  “Uh, they’re just sketches,” he said, but not until she caught a glimpse of the reason why he’d taken the book from her.

  Page five almost certainly had a naked person on it. She knew it did. That rounded thing hadn’t been someone’s bare elbow. He’d drawn pictures of naked people, and now he’d gone right back to that jagged closed-off-ness for reasons undisclosed.

  It made her want to tell him, It’s okay. I’ve seen nudity before. But the truth was, she hadn’t seen nudity before. Except for her own, which seemed singularly pale and unimpressive.

  “I gotta go,” he said, all in a rush—and it was then that she knew something had really gone wrong. Something had happened in the last thirty seconds to make him shove his notepad back into his bag as though everything had caught fire, and though she didn’t want to imagine it was the nakedness she had to believe it had something to do with it.

  He thought she was a prude. Or a Jesus freak. Or maybe even something worse.

  “Really, I—” she started, but he didn’t give her time to finish.

  “It was nice to meet you, Evie.”

  Of course, it was only after he’d vacated the premises—her fumbling for the right reassuring words to say, all the while—that she realized something even more insane than his abrupt departure.

  He knew her name. But she didn’t know his.

  Chapter Two

  She didn’t expect him to be there the following Wednesday. In fact, she promised herself she wouldn’t even go out there and check, because really she didn’t care in the slightest about him. He thought she was a prude who wanted to be protected from naked people.

  And also a lot of embarrassing things had maybe happened in front of him, so perhaps the whole thing was just better left untouched.

  She certainly thought so, until she saw him by the fence. And then her heart did this stupid little dance in her chest because her heart had obviously gone insane, and the urge to immediately run out there made a complete fool of all the promises she’d just made.

  She had to stand very still and compose herself for thirty seconds before opening the patio door and casually walking out. Anything less and he would know. He would get that she wanted to see him and speak to him again, even though most of her didn’t even understand why.

  Explaining it to him would surely prove almost impossible. Especially as he didn’t even register her presence at first. He just stood leaning on the fence in the Ryersons’ yard, face turned away, until a great clot of embarrassment welled up in her throat.

  He was waiting for the Ryerson kid. He wasn’t even waiting for her! She’d just assumed, and now she had to rush back inside before he saw her and started thinking of her as some sort of floppy, lovesick idiot.

  God, didn’t he understand? She could never be lovesick. She could never be anything like that. She didn’t even know how to behave like a normal human being, never mind anything that did something as stupid as fall in love.

  Only then he turned and tugged one of the earphones she hadn’t seen out, and his face seemed…warm. Pleased, she thought again, though she knew she was going to have to think of another word for that expression.

  It wasn’t pleased, exactly. It was…something else.

  “Evie,” he said, and inexplicable goose bumps broke out all over her arms. He had been waiting for her. And he’d waited in the Ryerson’s yard too, as though he wasn’t allowed in this one.

  Not yet, anyway. Not until she gave him permission to come through the wooden barrier between them.

  “Hi,” she said. Mainly because her mouth had filled with cotton and her brain had disappeared somewhere around his first charcoal-soft gaze.

  “I just wanted to…” he started, but didn’t finish. As though maybe he was having trouble making actual sentences too. As though he was like her, in some small way, and for the rest of any time they spent together they were just going to have to speak in monosyllables and the occasional grunt.

  But maybe that was all right, because she felt almost certain she knew what he meant. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And in reply she thought something mixed-up and weird—I am now.

  “Didn’t mean to run out on you like that,” he said after a moment, and she thought automatically of that one bare body part in his notepad. Thought of the word prude, painted all over her.

  “You know, I really don’t care if you draw naked people.”

  He raised an eyebrow. Licked his lips with a tongue that looked smooth and fat and somehow…interesting.

  “Yeah, I just thought—”

  “I mean, I get how I seem.”

  Like a nun, she thought. Like a nun in a tower made out of chastity belts.

  But he protested almost immediately, and when he did his shoulders went back. His mouth hardened somehow, so that the words came out solid and sharp.

  “You don’t seem like anything, Evie—that’s not what I meant. I just didn’t want you to think…I don’t know.”

  He sighed, shrugged.

  “Like you were suddenly showing me naked pictures?”

  She almost got a rueful smile, for that. It told her she’d guessed correctly, before he even answered.

  “Right.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that. I mean, why would you?”

  “Right,” he said again, but this time the word seemed different. A little more up and down. A little less sure of itself. And when his eyes locked with hers she felt that goose-bumpy thing happen again—only this time it occurred lower down and more toward the middle.

  -->