I was lying on my bed listening to Lorde, doing my best to think of nothing and mostly succeeding. Right up until a face appeared in my open bedroom window. Screaming, I bolted upright, yanking out my earbuds. Yet again preparing for death, or whatever.
“Hey,” said John.
“Holy shit,” I said, hand pressed against my chest, trying to catch my breath. Just as well I hadn’t thought to reach for the knife I now kept in my bedside dresser. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Knocked at the door but you didn’t answer.” He made himself comfortable on the window ledge, coiling his legs against the frame in an easy mix of flexibility and balance. But a hint of a frown creased his forehead.
“I didn’t hear.”
A nod.
Slowly, my bodily functions returned to almost normal. There remained the issue of John Cole sitting on my windowsill, however.
I turned off the music and sat there in front of him in a black tank top with a shelf bra and loose cotton sleep shorts covered in little rainbows. Way too much skin on display.
What was it about this guy always catching me in my pajamas?
In my defense, the clock read almost midnight. I grabbed a pillow and placed it across my lap, reducing the amount of thigh exposed. Next, I smoothed a chunk of hair across my forehead, tucking it in place behind my ear. Hopefully covering the ugly scar.
He, of course, despite the unusually warm night, looked cool. Blue jeans, a gray shirt, long hair hanging loose. I’d never had the opportunity to really observe him up close before. The man/boy was intimidating. Hang had been right about his face. It was something special with the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones, the smooth high forehead, and those damn perfect lips. John Cole was stupidly beautiful, in that he was so beautiful it made me stupid. Not that I was staring or anything.
“Sorry about not going to Isaac’s funeral,” I blurted out. “And the stuff my ex-best friend said on TV about you, if you heard it. We both know things didn’t happen like that. I never said—”
“Ex?” His voice cut across my babble of an apology.
“Yes.”
Leaning his head back against the window frame, he nodded thoughtfully. “Sorry if I surprised you,” he said. “Showing up like this. I wasn’t going to come, but . . .” His voice broke off and his eyes flitted around my room. Thankfully, I’d insisted the hot-pink walls and matching lacy princess bedspread go a few years back. I’d painted my room a pale blue-gray and begged a fancy old-style white iron bed out of Grandma. Books were still everywhere; some things would never change. But Barbie’s mansion was long gone and only my favorite soft toy remained on display, a battered old bear called Sugar. I refused to be embarrassed. In my younger days, Sugar had seen me through all sorts of trials and tribulations.
John’s gaze returned to me and he took a deep breath, his frown turning into a determined scowl. “I wanted to thank you for telling the cops I wasn’t involved, and that I tried to get us all out of there alive.” He shifted his weight on the window ledge, balanced half-in and half-out of my room. “That’s what I wanted to say when I called.”
I cocked my head. His short words had launched a host of questions. I asked the last one first: “You called?”
“Yeah. A couple of days after. I talked to your mom.”
Huh. “She never told me you called.”
“Oh.” He grabbed the back of his neck, rubbing at the muscles there. “Okay.”
His face went neutral. Sometimes it was next to impossible to tell what was going on behind it. Why the hell hadn’t Mom told me about him calling? Guess she’d been brainwashed by the cops and the drug-dealing accusations. Which still didn’t make it okay.
Meanwhile, Mom would have a meltdown if she knew I had a boy in my room. Though technically, he wasn’t in my room, just sitting on the windowsill. Highly doubt the technicality would get me out of being grounded, however.
“Sorry about that. That’s kind of you to check up on me. It would have been good to talk.” I tried to meet his eyes, but settled for staring vaguely at his shoulder. “I would have called you back—”
“Not a big deal, Edie.” He shrugged off my concerns. “I just wanted to say thanks. It really made a difference.” He nodded to himself, satisfied, as if in conveying his thanks he had done what he set out to do.
“How did it make a difference?”
Silence answered me. His eyes fixed onto mine, and for a moment his aura of badass cool deserted him, and he looked lost and alone. And young. Despite the sharp angles of his face and the scruff on his chin. “Isaac wasn’t my friend,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I was his dealer. I was selling that night at the Drop Stop. He was there because of me.” He swallowed and looked away, scowling out into the night. I waited him out, and eventually he returned to my question. “The cops found two ounces in the back of the Charger. But they gave me a pass on it. They said there was a witness talking about me being a hero and saving her life. You must have been pretty persuasive. I’ve never had a cop cut me any slack before.”
“Well, I’m glad it helped,” I said, “but I was only telling the truth—you did save my life.”
The trace of a sad smile flitted around the corners of his mouth.
I pulled myself forward on the bed and gathered the sheets up around my legs. “Why did you tell yourself not to come here?”
“Because I’m poison.” His eyes fixed on mine. “I don’t want to drag you down. That’s why I didn’t speak to you at school. If the teachers even see us talking they’ll slot you in the ‘don’t bother’ category without a second thought. There’s no coming back from that. And the morons at school are no better. They’ll just think they can use you to score some cheap weed.”
“Yeah. That’s happened already, actually.”
John frowned. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Let me know if that changes.” He frowned some more.
“It’s fine,” I repeated. “I couldn’t care less about any of it.”
“You should,” he chided. “Especially the teachers. I tried showing up to a math study group during lunch a week ago, and the teacher wouldn’t even let me into the room. Just thought I was there to deal or cause trouble.”
“That’s so unfair.”
“No, it’s not. I earned it.” His voice dripped with bitterness, and his lip curled into a sneer. Whoa. Some serious self-loathing going on there. “But it would be unfair if any of it rubbed off on you. You don’t deserve it.”
His legs coiled up beneath him, and his body tilted away from me, as if he was about to slip off the edge and into the garden below.
“Do you have trouble sleeping?” I blurted. “Since it happened?”
He stopped mid-movement, as if surprised by my question. Then he settled himself firmly back on the windowsill, shifting around a little, getting comfortable. Facing half-away from me, his head tilted in a slow nod.
“Nightmares, too?” I asked.
“Every night,” he said. A sudden smile flashed across his face, as if something in him had lightened at my words. He looked down and away, hiding his expression.
“I heard you hit someone at your old school,” he said.
Guess news traveled fast. “Yeah. That happened.”
Again the nod, this time followed by silence. He seemed happy enough, settled on the windowsill, one hand hanging down. His fingers rubbed absently at my scrunched-up bedsheet.
“How’s your brother?” I asked, mentally high-fiving myself for coming up with something to say.
“Ah, yeah,” he said, shoving a hand through his hair. “Haven’t really seen him lately. Dillon’s not much better than Chris. Moved on from selling weed to doing the hard stuff himself a year back. He’ll probably be just like Chris in a couple of years.”
“Sorry.”
“Me too.” He paused. “One thing I was wondering . . .”
“What?”
“When you took the gun . . .”
My throat tightened. “Yes?”
“You really think you could have pulled the trigger?”
“I did. It was out of bullets.”
His brows arched. “You did?”
“Yes,” I said, offering a tight smile.
“Huh.” He didn’t need to look quite that surprised.
“Don’t be so impressed. If there had been ammo, I probably would have hit you by mistake.”
He huffed out a laugh, and it was hard not to grin back at him.
John blinked once, twice.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just never seen you smile before.” For a moment he looked thoughtful, as if his words were going somewhere. But they didn’t.
“I’d better go.” He dropped my sheet and moved to leave. “This is a nice area,” he said, making his way out over the windowsill, “but you probably shouldn’t leave your window wide open at night.”
I shrugged. “I don’t like having the AC on all the time, makes me stuffy.”
He grunted disapprovingly, and jumped down from my window ledge. Fortunately, Mom hadn’t gotten around to planting any flowers there yet. “’Night, Edie.”
“See you at school,” I said, moving to the window to see him off, and gathering the bedsheets around me, toga-style.
“Mm.” Standing in the shadows of the garden, I could just see his jaw firm in the dim light. “I meant what I said. Best if I stay away from you.”
“No. No, not really. When you think about it . . .”
We just looked at each other for a minute. Nothing was said.
“I just meant it felt good to talk,” I fumbled. “I’m glad you came over. This whole thing has been kind of isolating, I guess.”
He stared back up at me, his face inscrutable. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I lost a lot of friends when I stopped dealing.”
“I don’t know if they’re really your friends if they’re just using you for dope.”
“Huh. Maybe not.”
“Sorry,” I said, hating the defeated slump of his shoulders. Me and my big mouth. “That was a little harsh.”
“Probably true though.”
I said nothing.
“’Night.” Then he disappeared into the shadows. Soon enough, the growl of his car carried through the quiet. I hung out the window, listening until it faded into the distance. Stars twinkled up high, clouds drifting around.
What a strange night.
I closed the window and tried to get some sleep, but of course my mind wouldn’t shut up. On and on, it kept going over his visit. Replaying the conversation, chopping and changing things. The version where he suddenly threw himself at my feet, declaring his eternal love and promising me all sorts of sexual gratification, was my favorite. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to talk to him again.