2006
The plink of hard gravel against my window pulls me out of my doze. I’m not asleep – not quite, at least, although my eyes have been drooping for God knows how long and the words in the book I’ve been working through for McGraw’s assigned summer reading swim around the page, refusing to stay in the neat little lines that might help me make some sense of them all – but it still takes me a little while to realise what’s going on.
Plink.
Plink.
And then a hissed whisper, barely audible: ‘Hey. Carrie. Carrie.’
It might be faint, but I’d know that voice anywhere. It’s a voice I hear so often in my dreams that I can barely believe it’s real, but just as I’m beginning to doubt my own ears, I’m faced with the unassailable proof: a tiny pebble, no bigger than my fingernail, comes sailing through my open window in a wide arc and skitters across the floor.
‘Carrie!’ the voice hisses again. ‘I know you’re awake. I can see your lamp. Carrie!’
I can’t run to the window fast enough. The book is cast down to the floor – sorry, Zora Neale Hurston, but I’ve got bigger things on my mind now – and lean out as far as I can, pressing my stomach hard up against the sill.
And there he is, staring up at me. He casts his arms out wide like a bird trying to take flight, and grins.
‘Finally,’ he says.
‘You missed,’ I reply, holding up the rock.
‘Got your attention, didn’t it? I’m going to call that a win.’
I can’t argue with that. It’s hard to argue with anything Hale says. He’s got a way of steamrolling you with charm that makes everything he comes out with seem almost painfully reasonable. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Come down.’
‘What?’
He stops the whispering now, and clears his throat. ‘I said, come down. You. Down here. With me.’
‘Shh,’ I say. ‘You’ll wake my parents.’
He smiles, and I can see the sharpness of his teeth even in the moonlight. ‘Maybe if you were down here with me I wouldn’t have to talk so loud.’
I check the pink plastic alarm clock on my bedside cabinet, a remnant of a childhood that isn’t all that long ago no matter how womanly I might feel. ‘It’s past midnight, Hale,’ I say. ‘I can’t come down. I’m in my pyjamas.’
That grin again. ‘Doesn’t bother me none,’ he says. ‘It’s not like I dressed up or anything.’
It’s hard to tell with Hale. I’ve never seen him in anything but his leather jacket, scuffed to hell and back and covered in patches where the damage became too much for even him to bear. He wears it even in the middle of a Texas summer, too stubborn to admit that one of these days it’s going to give him a heat stroke – and then let’s see how cool he seems. When I tell him this – which I have, repeatedly – he just laughs. ‘Damn, Nurse Carrie,’ he says. ‘Always looking out for me. What did I ever do to deserve you?’
At first it used to piss me off, the way he was so glib about my concern, the way he seemed to be mocking me about the whole nurse thing, but then I realised that wasn’t it at all. He didn’t mean it maliciously. It’s just that it’s been so long since anyone has shown Hale anything approaching genuine consideration that he doesn’t quite know how to deal with it, and so he does what he always does. Jokes. False modesty. And then, finally, if I push too hard, he pushes back.
Some days he feels less like a boyfriend and more like a stray dog I’m having to teach to trust people again, but I don’t mind that. I don’t mind that at all.
‘So what are you waiting for?’ he says, making no effort to keep his voice down now. ‘You want me to put up a ladder or something?’
I can’t go out.
Well, no. I could. I just shouldn’t.
Mom and Dad are asleep, ready for an early start at the Red Rose in the morning. They probably wouldn’t even realise I was gone. Suddenly Hale’s steamroller looms large in front of me, pressing my concerns flat.
Sneaking out with a boy in the middle of the night. What’s the worst that could happen?
‘Give me five minutes,’ I say.
~~~
I close the door behind me as quietly as I can, convinced that my parents will both have just sat bolt upright in bed, turned to each other and said, in perfect unison, ‘Let’s ground Caroline until she’s in her thirties.’
But it’s too late now. My decision has been made. I’m an outlaw, and I’ll just have to deal with that.
I put my hand up to my hair, pulling it tight into a ponytail with an elastic I keep around my wrist. Hale tells me I look better with it down, but that’s when he sees me primped and preened and making an effort. He’s never seen me just before bed, my long brown hair a flyaway mess that a couple of strokes with a brush did nothing to fix. Should have taken your time, I tell myself. Should have made yourself a little bit more presentable. I can hear Mom’s voice in my head, urging me to tidy myself up a bit – but then again, she always manages to look glamorous, even when she’s wearing an apron. I just look... well, let’s just say that glamour doesn’t come into it.
That’s a lie, of course. If I could hear Mom’s voice right now, it would be screaming at me to get my ass back inside and warning Hale not to come around after dark. I’m glad I can’t. The only thing I can hear is the skree-skree of a nearby cricket and the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my chest. How is it possible that he does this to me, without even seeing him? Just the anticipation makes me feel like I’m going to explode.
I can feel my pulse quickening as I sneak down the side path of the house, and my footsteps match. If the crunch of the gravel gives me away, so be it. I can’t wait any longer for him.
‘Hey there, gorgeous,’ he says when he sees me, reaching out a hand to take mine. That’s my Hale: always the charmer. At least, he is to me.
I wonder what it is that makes me special to him. I wonder if I really am special to him, or if I just want it to be that way so much that I’m willing myself into ignorance. Maybe the rumours I’ve heard about him are true. Maybe I’m not the only one he looks at that way.
Or maybe I’m just being crazy. When I’m with him, it’s almost impossible to doubt it. He’s all mine, and I’m all his.
He pulls me in for a kiss, but I put a finger on his lips to cut him off. He looks back at me like I’ve gone insane. ‘Not here,’ I whisper. ‘Come on. Hurry.’
I pull him along the street, desperate to get out of sight of my house as quickly as possible; the last thing I need is for my parents to open a window and see me making out with Hale right there on the street. That would take a lot of explaining, and I’m not sure I have it in me right now. It would be an unwelcome kick back to the real world, which at the moment is the furthest thing from my mind. Why would I ever want my mundane reality when I can walk on clouds with a boy like Hale?
There’s a stone bench at the intersection of Chambers Street and Penbrook, hidden behind an incline that would make it hard for anyone in the neighbouring houses to see us. I don’t expect anyone to be looking out of their windows at this hour, but if by chance someone does catch a glimpse of me out of doors I know for a fact my parents will be the first to hear about it. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take.
Well… for anyone other than Hale, at least.
I pull him along behind me like a child rushing towards an ice cream truck, his enormous paw pretty much enveloping my tiny hand, until at last we reach the bench.
Finally, we’re alone. Together.
I know what people say about teenage boys; I know what they’re about. By all accounts, Hale should immediately dive on me, attempting to stick his tongue down my throat and his hand up my shirt – not necessarily in that order – but he doesn’t. Instead he just looks at me, that same wry smile in his face. It makes me a little self-conscious to be watched like that, to be scrutinised with such intensity, but that intensity is part of the thing that drew me to Hale in the first place. On the one hand, so impulsive; on the other, so capable of restraint.
‘Damn, Carrie,’ he says at last, breathing out a long, slow sigh. ‘Aren’t you just a sight for sore eyes?’
I don’t know about that, but I’m glad he thinks so – and from the look on his face, I can believe him. He looks like a man who just got a long, cool drink of water after a week spent crawling through the desert.
I’ve never had anyone look at me like that. Before Hale, it never even occurred to me that anyone ever would. I can see how a girl could get used it.
‘How come you’re here?’ I ask.
He pauses. ‘No reason. Really.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Did something happen?’
Hale shakes his head. He knows exactly what I’m worried about. ‘No, no… nothing like that. Nothing bad. I just wanted to see you is all.’
‘You came halfway across town at midnight just to see me?’
He shrugs. ‘You say it like it’s crazy.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Not to me.’
He stretches his arm out along the back of the bench, and I feel the leather of his jacket heavy across my shoulders, but he doesn’t make an effort to pull me closer even though he must know – my God, he must know! – how much I want him to. He’s always treated me like I was some sort of china doll, like the carefully-outfitted collectibles in the front window of the curio store in town: made to be looked at rather than touched, played with, loved. Perhaps he’s worried that some of his roughness will rub off on me, and leave me damaged in some way.
As if I care. If he had any idea of the dreams that come to me in the night after I’ve seen him, I figure he’d find it a lot harder to be quite such a gentleman.
I scootch closer, until my thigh is pressed up against his and my hand is resting between his knees and he seems to relax a little. I can feel his tension evaporate just from being near me, as though I’m the ointment on a wound. It’s a small gesture, barely anything at all, but it seems to help.
You could do it, you know.
The thought creeps up on me stealthily, a snake through the grass that catches me by surprise.
Why not? Just a little higher…
Why not indeed? Why not just move my hand up, higher than his knee, past his thigh?
What’s the harm?
What’s the big deal? Am I worried people won’t think I’m a ‘nice girl’? Well, screw that. It’s 2006, for God’s sake; all the old rules don’t apply anymore. I might be the last girl in my school not to have made it with a boy, for all I know, especially if you believe the rumours. Word on the street is that Janey Dupree did it with two different boys at the same party back in April, one after another, and it’s not like she got the whole Scarlet Letter treatment. Whether it’s true or not, she’s still just as popular as ever. Even more popular with half the school, you might say.
But I don’t need two different boys. Just Hale. Always Hale. Only Hale.
I wonder if he’s hard right now.
Go on, the voice on my shoulder says. Check. Then you’ll know what he really thinks of you.
That’s a point. For all his charm, for all of the way that his quiet intensity seems to crack when he’s around me, it could all be a front. How could I be sure? Maybe I really am just some minor entertainment for him. After all, he’s seventeen. Out of school. A working man. Why the hell would he be interested in some dopey little junior like me, when he could be out there in the world with a real woman – the kind of woman who wouldn’t think twice about giving him what I’m sure he needs. In my dreams, that’s just the kind of woman I am: confident, cool, eager. When the lights go out, I can play his body like a grand piano, sure that it’ll respond to my touch, to my kisses, to my breath against his ear.
Tease? Yes. But only until his resolve breaks and he stops treating me like his delicate flower and makes a real woman of me.
And yet here I am, nervous about the thought of reaching up, unfastening his zipper, and…
But no. I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s one thing to fantasise about it, but in real life… I’m not sure I’m ready. Then again, I’m not sure I’m not ready either.
‘How did you even get here, anyway?’ I ask, trying to distract myself.
‘I rode a bike.’
‘You got a bike?’
He shifts awkwardly on the stone next to me. ‘For a little while,’ he says. ‘It belongs to some kid in the trailer park. His daddy hasn’t managed to pawn it off yet.’
‘You stole it?’ I say, pulling away from him and punching him on the arm. My dainty little fist can’t have hurt, but he still looks wounded. ‘You stole a little kid’s bike?’
‘I borrowed it. Jesus, Carrie… what do you think of me?’ I’ll put it back. I promise. I just needed to see you, and I didn’t want to wait any longer than I had to. I didn’t figure on you giving me such a hard time about it.’
The brow has furrowed again; all the playfulness has evaporated away. He’s right, of course. I’ve lived in Eden all my life. I know the reputation the trailer park over at the Grove has. I can’t deny that I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach when he first told me that’s where he lived, that that’s where he grew up. I hate myself for that – for the fact that he felt he needed to hide it from me at the start, for two whole weeks – but I can’t deny my reaction. I probably wouldn’t have seen him again if I’d known.
And he deserves better than that. He deserves not to be seen as some low-level criminal, always looking for an opportunity to make a quick buck from someone else’s misery, even though he’d be the first to admit that it’s a rough place to have a childhood. He deserves a chance to make an honest impression, to have people see him as he really is. He might not get it from anyone else, but he should sure as hell get it from me.
‘Hey,’ I say. I put my hand on his, gently interlacing our fingers. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He doesn’t react, at least not until I bring our hands up to my mouth and gently kiss the back of his. They’re strong and wide, with long fingers that end in calloused tips from his guitar – but they’re always kept immaculate. I’ve seen Hale’s face caked in dust and sweat after a day’s hard work, and I’ve seen him so worn out that he could barely stand, but I’ve never seen his hands dirty, not once. They’re a source of pride for him. ‘One day, Carrie,’ he said to me, ‘one day I’m going to make my living with these hands. And I don’t mean shovelling rocks, neither.’
I’ve always loved his hands, right from the first moment I met him. They were the first thing I noticed: before the crystal blue of his eyes, before the sharp jawline, before the furrow of his brow – a constant intensity that slips away when it’s just the two of us.
Is ‘always’ the right word to use when you’ve only known someone for less than a month? Rationally, realistically, it feels a little cheap – the way people say everything is ‘awesome’ when really most things are OK at best. But how else can I put it? For me, the last month has felt like an always – a whole stack of alwayses, one piled on top of the other, squashing infinity down into a few brief weeks until a century is indistinguishable from a second and a moment can last for a millennium. I’ve always known Hale, somehow.
Always, always, always.
The word feels nice on my tongue.
Almost, I think as he leans in and gives me his forgiving kiss, almost as nice as he does.