“She’s gone,” the boy said in a loud voice, maybe to inform her, and maybe simply because he wanted her to look at him.
Green.
It was all he could see when he finally got a good look at her face. Her eyes were the shade of burgeoning leaves in May, when their color is so bright, you cannot look anywhere else. They widened when she saw him, but she didn’t look away.
Was it at this moment he fell in love with her? He likes to think maybe it was. It was game over for him from the start.
The boy wanted to walk up to her and ask why she had run in the rain. Give her a shovel and offer her to try planting a bulb in his safe haven. But she looked… fragile. Like one word from him, and she’d be blown away with the wind.
But he couldn’t help himself. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t say anything, only looked around like she didn’t know where she was. As if someone else had brought her here. She blinked, then turned and leaned to grab a key from under a garden gnome. Without giving him another look, she unlocked the door and walked inside.
He’d never seen her here before, although he didn’t hang outside much, especially over the winter. When he wasn’t in school, he was usually inside, fighting with his siblings over who got to play the drums in Rock Band.
The boy walked to his mother in a daze and kneeled back in the dirt. His mother didn’t ask what he’d been doing. She just clucked her tongue and said, “That poor McIntyre girl.”
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, his mind still stuck on the haunted green eyes that had remained on his. As if she, too, had recognized something in him.
“Nothing’s wrong with her. She just landed in the wrong family.”
He didn’t know what this meant, not really. He couldn’t have known what was going on in the McIntyre household. Even years later, he never got the courage to ask the girl what had happened on that day she ran in the rain to her grandmother’s house. Usually, he took what she gave him and didn’t ask for more.
“Why was she alone?” the boy asked. Even at ten years old, his parents barely ever let him out of their sight. He couldn’t imagine being able to run across town by himself.
“I don’t know, honey.” His mother looked at him and tilted her head. “I don’t think anyone in that family has many friends around town.”
He looked again at the neighbor’s house, wondering what was going on inside. Did the girl know the owner? Or did she just take a lucky guess on where to find the key? Had she been able to warm up?
“The next time I see her, I’ll invite her in,” the boy said. If anyone needed a friend, it was this girl.
A beat passed before his mother answered, “All right, honey.”
For months, he thought he’d never see her again.
And then, one August morning, the girl with the green eyes and ill-fitting clothes was there.
He never let her go after that.
Chapter 8
Walking up the front porch steps of my childhood home feels like stepping into an alternate universe. One I’d seen mostly in nightmares.
I didn’t expect it’d happen this way. This morning, when I got up, I decided I’d pushed off seeing Mom long enough. I’d been here almost a week. However, I was still too much of a chicken to just go to her, so I kicked myself in the ass and called instead.
“I’m hosting a little something in Ruth’s honor tomorrow,” I said after she answered in an almost overly cheery voice. She was nice enough to pretend it wasn’t strange that I hadn’t visited her yet.
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Would you like some help with the cooking?”
“I’m… I’m good, I think.” My plan had actually been to get a mix of takeout and pre-made stuff, since I can’t cook to save my life.
“Nonsense, I’ll help you. Actually, why don’t you come over? It’ll be easier to do it here. I have everything I need.”
“I—”
“Oh, we can make that cinnamon shortbread you love so much! Ruth loved it, too, when I brought her some.”
I want to tell her I can’t stand the taste of shortbread anymore. The last time I ate it was during the last annual Chowder Festival I attended. It’s a kitschy yearly event with a few tents set up in the middle of town where merchants sell handmade products, and locals host an unofficial cooking competition, usually with—you guessed it—chowder, but Mom had decided to make her shortbread that year. Barely anyone had gone by her booth, so Eli and I had eaten most of it. And then, our day was cut short when my father got so drunk, he pissed himself in the middle of the lanes of tents, and Mom, Eli, and I had to carry him to our car. I’d thrown up all my shortbread once we got home. Eli had held my hair back and never brought it up again.
