She nodded, still thoughtful.
“It was nice to meet you,” she said.
“You, too,” he replied with a perfunctory lilt of his head, and then she smiled at him, heading back into the house.
Aldo rolled an invisible joint between his fingers, making his way to the edge of the lawn. When he’d arrived with Regan that morning, he’d noticed that her house overlooked a narrow creek, which he now wished he could see. Instead he could merely hear it, left to guess whether or not it was actually there or simply part of his imagination. Part of him considered leaping in, finding out by doing. Not every problem was best left to theory to explain.
“Brought you something,” he heard behind him, jolting him from his thoughts, and he turned to find Regan approaching from the lawn, sidling up to him. The wind had whipped her hair around her shoulders and she smoothed it away from her eyes, offering him a glance of apology.
“Here,” she said, holding out what remained of a blunt, and he looked down at it, skeptical. “Oh, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes, “I can’t help whatever shitty weed college me left in my old bedroom. It’s still better than nothing,” she reminded him, temptingly wiggling it between her fingers.
He reached out, taking it from her. The pads of her fingers were warm.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked her neutrally. She shrugged, holding up a plastic lighter and beckoning for him to place the blunt between his lips.
“Not especially,” she said as he complied. She took his chin in one hand, flipping the lighter and holding it up to the end of the blunt, saturating the stunted tip in flames until it smoldered. “There,” she said, obviously pleased with herself as he inhaled. “Better?”
She released his jaw, and he exhaled. It wasn’t especially good weed, but he’d certainly had worse.
“Sure,” he said, eyeing it. “Though it wasn’t too terrible before.”
She seemed to disagree, but dismissed her own feelings on the matter.
“I heard you talked to Madeline,” she said, something of a challenge.
He shrugged. “A bit. Mostly about math.”
“Not bees?”
“Not bees,” he said, and handed her the blunt. “Bees are for you.”
She smiled at him, accepting it.
“Thanks,” she said, as if he’d told her she was pretty.
“You’re welcome,” he said as if he had.
She inhaled deeply, choking a little when it filled her mouth. “This stuff is stronger than I remember,” she coughed up, and he chuckled, holding his hand out to take it back from her.
“Won’t you get in trouble for this?”
She shrugged, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m an adult, Rinaldo. Or something like one.”
“Mm.” He took another drag, already more at ease. Above him were stars. Beneath him was grass. There was wonder here, even if Regan no longer saw it. Even if she no longer felt it, he would feel it for both of them. He would translate it for her later. He would learn to draw it for her, he thought, or to write it, or graph it. She seemed to appreciate things she could see. He thought of her gaze traveling over the scars on his shoulders, taking him in. Yes, he would draw it for her, and then she would see it. She would watch it take shape and he would know he’d said it in a way she could understand, and then she would know that even this, with its ordinary features, was wonder and glory, too.
He didn’t blame her for not seeing it. He blamed everyone else for letting her forget.
She leaned over, guiding his hand to her mouth for another drag. Her fingers curved around his, brushing over his knuckles and sliding up to where he held the blunt, secured between the pads of his index finger and his thumb.
“What do you think about dancing?” she said, moistening her lips and inhaling. She let it out smoothly this time, standing close enough to him that he could feel her breath as if he’d taken it himself.
“Yes,” he said—he would have said it to anything, she could have suggested a mutiny and he’d have searched tirelessly for an axe, a pitchfork, Excalibur itself—and she smiled up at him, lifting her chin to permit him full view of her approval. The prospect of it, of anything, buzzed in his veins.
Then she was quiet as only she could be quiet, with every motion impossibly loud.
“Your hair looks good,” she murmured, lifting her fingers to the roots near his temple. She brushed back the strands, nails raking lightly over his scalp.
He took another drag from the blunt as her fingers skated down, running lightly over his cheek and down to his mouth. The dark tips of her nails traveled the shape of his upper lip, curving with it, and in another version of this precise moment, he said, Regan, come closer, let’s see what happens, let’s see how the stars shine on your skin.