He transforms himself into the charismatic, carefree version of himself the public knows. Smiling at his admirers like a certified heartthrob, he shows no signs of the burden he carries on his shoulders behind closed doors. It’s both impressive and terrifying.
“There’re a few places where I’m not.” Wilder rests his hand on my lower back, leading me toward a walkway out of sight from nosy tenants.
“Your office?”
Wilder’s still a heartthrob, but the phony pep in his step tapers off as we escape prying eyes.
“Inside my office. My house. Your apartment,” he says.
An hour later, we’re finding our way around to the empty playground. Wilder and I lazily sway back and forth on a set of swings, tearing into my shareable pack of M&M’s. The chains whine as I push myself back and let the toes of my shoes drag in the sand, coming to a slow stop before doing it again. I hold the flashlight between my knees, but I don’t find myself obsessively following the light when Wilder’s around.
Popping a few candy-coated chocolates into his mouth, Wilder asks, “What’s up with the candles, Camilla?”
I shrug and aim to mimic Lydia’s passive tone, but my attempt comes off empty and weak. “I like candles.”
“No.” He shakes his head and twists his swing to face me, gently prodding my shoe until I look over. “Talent told me you can’t sleep without them.”
“Talent should mind his own business.”
“What about me?” His swing drops back into position, widening the space between us enough that I sense a string in my heart pull away with him. “Should I mind my own business, or are you my business? Because we’re friends.”
“My daughter won’t dress like a loose woman.”Daddy pulled the drawers from my dresser out one by one, until my clothes lay dumped across the floor.
“She’s fourteen,”my mom said, in one of the few times she defended me.“She’s just a girl.”
“And what do these dresses say about her character at fourteen years old?” he asked, plucking dresses out from the sea of clothes.“Immodest dressing is a threat to God-fearing men. She’s set a snare of temptation, begging our brothers at church to lust after her—throwing herself at them. I won’t stand for it.”
He’d later rip my dresses to shreds.
My dad was right about me.
I didn’t realize it as a girl in a yellow, knee-length dress, but I do as a woman who wore nothing but a T-shirt and a promise to invite a man into my bed, knowing he wouldn’t refuse.
Wilder was drunk, and I was immoral.
I baited him, and I continue to trap him with temptation no man can refuse, God-fearing or not.
I’m a witch in the woods, building a house of candy.
“Are we friends, or do you feel obligated to entertain me?” Dragging the heels of my feet in the sand, I stop the swing to pull my leggings over my ankles. “I’ve backed you into a corner.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I didn’t ask for your permission before I put your name down for this nonsense.” I tug on the front of the safety vest, implying our vigilante work. “You didn’t say more than two words to me for months, and suddenly you’re showing up for movie night.”
“Camilla, no one can make me do anything I don’t want to do.” His conviction rings true, but I tug the sleeves of my sweatshirt past my wrists like I haven’t heard a word of it. Until he says, “I like movies. I like these vests. And I like you.”
Smiling despite myself, I push off the ground and the flashlight falls from between my knees. A beam of light teeter-totters, end over end, screaming light across the playground before coming to a stop and illuminating the slide. I swing back and plunge forward, leaning back to watch the stars streak across the sky as I pump my legs to go faster and higher. My hair lifts off my shoulders to sail behind me, sweeping across the sand as I glide through the crown, up, up, and up.
When I soar to the highest part of the arch, and my entire body is weightless and my bottom rises from the plastic seat, I tighten my grip on the metal chains to keep from taking off like a rocket ship headed to the dark side of the moon. I close my eyes at the tickle in my stomach and say the words I’ve only said aloud twice before.
Once to Elijah Read, and again to Lydia Montgomery.
“My dad knew I’d grow up to be a harlot, so he locked me in the closet.”
And then I free-fall backward, away from the stars, the moon, and the sweeping second where I weighed nothing and felt absolutely nothing.
“What the fuck do you mean?” Wilder asks, following me from one side of the arch to the other. I open my eyes to see him stand from his swing. “Camilla, slow down.”