Joey is standing outside the patio doors, staring at me. “What the hell are you doing outside, Em?”
His hair is mussed, like he was already asleep and I woke him up.
“I…”
Joey frowns.
“I was going to read and the book I wanted…I remembered I left it in the pool house. A few weeks ago. I was just going to get it.” I try to keep my voice from shaking.
From the corner of my eye, I hear movement on the other side of the wall that separates our house from Gage’s.
“Well, hurry up,” Joey says sleepily.
Gage is halfway up the wall, starting to hoist his leg over.
Joey is just standing there, hugging himself in the cool air.
“Okay, okay,” I say loudly. “Geez. Go inside. You don’t have to watch over me.”
I was too harsh. Joey’s face falls. “What’s with you,” he mutters. He turns around and walks back into the house.
I’m frozen, torn because I’ve hurt my brother’s feelings and because Gage is now over the wall, pinned to it like a butterfly under glass. He heard Joey.
I shake my head quickly and motion for him to go back over. I hold up my hands, like, Sorry.
There’s a flicker of light in Maddie’s room upstairs, then it turns off.
Gage sees it, too, smiles at me.
My heart is thudding. I could go into the house or I could go into the pool house, but what if Joey comes back down? Or did I hurt his feelings so much he won’t?
I had to sit in Hank’s Hoagies with him for four hours. I should be able to…do something for myself.
I look at the pool house and walk straight to it and open the door.
Gage follows me.
Gage’s eyes are gleaming. “That was close,” he says softly.
Inside the pool house, he steps toward me, strokes my shoulder.
“I will admit, I was a little jealous this afternoon,” he says quietly. “When I saw that guy outside your house.”
I can feel prickles of pleasure along my spine.
“Really?” I say.
“Yeah. One of the things I like about you is you seem to keep to yourself.”
He scoops my hair into his palms, rubs the ends with his thumbs. I want to concentrate on just him, on just this moment, but I’m still tense, thinking of Joey upstairs, worried he’ll come back outside, worried I hurt his feelings. I can’t relax. If only I didn’t have to sneak around.
“But, Gage, sometimes I just…I mean, maybe we could try meeting somewhere else, not always here. Like, a mov—”
Then he’s kissing me and my words fall away, forgotten.
* * *
—
“Emory.”
I slam the patio door shut behind me, startled.
My dad is standing on the other side of the kitchen island, his eyes tired, a drink in front of him.
“Dad. What are you doing here?”
“I live here. And it’s past midnight. What on earth were you doing outside this late at night?”
“Nothing. I thought I left a book in the pool house. That I wanted to read. But it wasn’t there.”
Can he see? Can he tell? Do people look different, once they’ve been kissed and touched?
“Why aren’t the security lights on?” He walks past me, flips the switch.
“I…must have turned them off accidentally.”
“Well, be careful. There have been a few break-ins in the neighborhood lately and we need to stay safe.”
“Oh.”
“You look flushed. Are you getting sick?”
Like my mother, he peers at me, puts his hand on my forehead. But unlike her, he uses his palm, not the back of his hand, and I feel an unexpected warmth for him, the way his hand cups my forehead, like when I was little and sick and he wasn’t just the man who made other people better, he made me better.
He takes his hand away. His eyes look sad and drained.
“Joey’s asleep?” he asks.
“Yes. He had his first shift today.”
“Did it go well?”
“I think so. I don’t know. I mean, it’s hoagies.” I laugh nervously.
“Your mother says you’re in Drama Club this year. I like that. Simon Stanley is a lovely man. Maybe…” He pauses. “Maybe you’ll make some friends there, eh? I know you miss Liza. And spending a Saturday night with your brother can’t be the most fun thing at sixteen, I imagine.” If only he knew how true that statement was.
“It’s not like he has anyone to hang out with, either,” I say. “So it kinda fits.”
He picks up his drink from the island. “You have each other.”
“We have each other.”
It’s true; we do have each other. I shouldn’t have yelled at Joey. I feel ashamed now. I’m supposed to be helping him, not yelling at him. Whatever my problems are, they aren’t nearly as bad as Joey’s.
“Good night, Emory. Get to bed, all right?”
“Good night, Dad,” I say, and make my way up the stairs to my bedroom.
In bed, I touch a finger to my mouth. My lips feel fuller, swollen almost, and softer. A gentle electric feeling creeps over my body.
My phone pings.
I like what we have
Yes, I type.
Not a thing, but something good, just between us
So he was listening, in the pool house, before we started.
Go slow, I tell myself. Baby steps. Not all at once. One thing at a time.
Okay, I answer. For now.
Give me some words
I think, the quietness of my room wrapping around me. If I got up, would I see him in his window, looking back at me? Or is he in bed, too, wondering about his own swollen mouth?
Let the stars, I type, speak for us.
20
MONDAY AFTER SCHOOL, WE are all standing on the stage, watching Simon Stanley sitting in a wooden chair. His legs are crossed and he’s holding a paperback copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
“Who am I?” he asks.
No one says anything. I shift from one leg to the other, trying to rest my knee.
“I mean, just by looking at me, do you think you know me? By the way I’m sitting. By the way I’m holding this book.”
“Um,” says the red-haired girl. “You look relaxed. Your legs are crossed.”
“Good,” Simon says. “What happens if I do this?” He slouches down in the chair, uncrosses his legs, rolls his head to one side so it almost touches his shoulder. Giggles from the circle.
“I’d say you’re stoned, dude,” another girl says.
Simon smiles. “Perhaps, yes. What about my book? What does that say about me?”
Liza smirks. “That’s a salacious book, Mr. Stanley, so I’d guess you have a lot of saucy stuff on your mind.”
Simon laughs. “Indeed. My point is, when we are thinking about our roles in a play, the play gives us direction, and an idea of how to construct our character, but not too much. So, as actors, we have to really think about our characters. The way they sit. The way they speak. Why they sit the way they do. What that tells an audience about their whole character, but also about what is happening in the scene in question. No two actors play the same role in the same way. Each approaches their role as a whole, but the character in pieces. They fill in the backstory. The seams of the garment, so to speak. The thread that holds everything together.”