“Give us time,” he said, and I agreed with a smile and a nod.
It was the first act of kindness I was shown.
The second came later that day in the form of a prepubescent boy.
While I sat on a chair at the back of the store, eating my sandwich and trying to figure out how to send Harry a picture in a text message on that damn phone, I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a boy of maybe ten or eleven watching me. I was sure he thought he was hiding effectively behind the rack of bananas, but the kid hid worse than I would behind a flagpole.
But I pretended not to see him.
I wondered where his mom or dad was. If they knew he was missing or if they knew their kid was doing a bang-up job of snooping on the new guy in town. And I bit back a laugh when he leaned too far to the left and tripped over his own feet.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, realizing he had blown his cover, only to turn right into the banana rack and knock several bunches off their hooks. “Ah, man …”
I stood up, dusting the sandwich crumbs off the bib of my apron. “Don’t worry about it. I got it.”
“What? N-no, it’s—” He looked over his shoulder, and his eyes raked over my body before widening with awe. “Wow. You’re, like, really tall.”
“Huh.” I made a show of pressing my hands to my head and looking down at the floor. “Look at that. I guess I am.”
“How tall are you?”
“Last time I checked”—I pointed to the glowing Produce sign I was regularly having to duck under in order to mop the floor between the apples and oranges—“as tall as it takes to smack my head on that.”
The kid stared at the sign, his mouth open in shock. “Whoa.”
“Yeah. I keep asking Howard to move it, but”—I shrugged—“what can ya do?”
I knelt to pick up the scattered bananas, and the kid mimicked the motion to help.
He never stopped staring at my face.
“My mom said you were in jail,” he blurted out, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Man, I loved kids. They didn’t fuck around. They asked what they wanted to ask, said what they wanted to say. There was no beating around the bush with them, and I appreciated it so much more than the scrutinizing glances and whispers behind my back.
“I was,” I answered with a nod.
“Is that where you got that scar?”
I shook my head as I returned the bananas to their rightful hooks. “No. I got this scar before—”
“Noah!”
The kid turned at the sudden sound of a woman barking what was apparently his name.
That would be Mom, I thought, turning to face a woman in a baggy sweater, tight jeans, and black boots, carrying a handbasket full of groceries.
Her wavy light-brown hair might’ve been drab in color to some, but to me, it reminded me of Sully’s coat. Soft. Irresistible. Comforting.
Like Rain’s hair.
The sudden thought brought with it an odd sense of relief I hadn’t felt in a long time, along with the most curious taste of déjà vu.
And I probably shouldn’t have been staring as much as I was. Especially considering how much it was annoying me to have this entire town staring at me. But I couldn’t seem to help myself when the last time I’d laid my eyes on someone so beautiful was when I saved a fifteen-year-old girl years ago.
Noah’s mom hurried to stand beside him, tugging at his sleeve as she readjusted the basket on her arm, while I took the bananas from his outstretched hand.
“Noah, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Sorry. I was just—”
“We have to get home and make dinner. You still have home—”
As I stood, she gasped before clearing her throat, like she was embarrassed to have gasped at all.
“I-I’m sorry he was bothering you,” she said, diverting her gaze to stare at the things in her basket. “Come on, Noah. Let’s go.”
“He’s fine,” I replied as I busied my hands by wiping them on my apron. “It was nice to actually talk to someone.”
She swallowed, taking a moment to look me over. Then, she forced her lips into a tight smile. “Um … well, have a good day.”
“Yeah, you too.” I waved at her son, already being dragged away by his mom. “Bye, Noah. Thanks for the chat.”
“Bye.” He looked over his shoulder and waved back with a slight curve to one side of his mouth. “I’ll see you around.”
I laughed to myself as I turned and cleaned up the wrapper for my sandwich. I dropped it in the trash and got back to work, making sure to smack my head against the Produce sign as I went. And all the while, up until I got onto my bike and rode home, I thought about Noah and the first honestly friendly, albeit brief, conversation I’d had since I’d arrived.
And I thought about Rain.
***
If prison had taught me anything, it was how to keep a strict schedule, thanks to the rigid regimen they’d kept us inmates on. So, almost immediately after I ate a dinner of canned soup and crackers, I spent an hour pulling down the wood paneling in the second bedroom. Then, I took a shower and got into bed with the book I’d recently started reading—a collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems.
Harry’s wife had an entire library of books I hadn’t read yet, and I was grateful she had passed a bunch on to me to keep me busy during the hours I wasn’t working or sleeping.
Then, at nine p.m. on the dot, I closed the book, turned off the light, and went to sleep.
It was a restless slumber, one that kept me tossing and turning, haunted by the past, the silence, and a foreboding that sometimes weaseled into my veins, one I couldn’t shake or explain. One that said the demons from my life before this place were never too far behind.
But just a little before eleven o’clock, an echoing crack through the night sent me bolting upright in my bed.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked nobody, breathless and shaken.
I couldn’t discern what the sound might’ve been. I had been half asleep when it happened. It could’ve been anything. A branch breaking. Thunder. A gunshot. Who the hell knew? But I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep until I investigated and ensured a bogeyman wasn’t out there, lurking in the skeletal shadows of the trees overhead.
So, I rolled out of bed, wearing nothing but my sweatpants and socks, and pulled back the sheet I was using for a curtain. I peered into the road and saw nothing to raise suspicion. And maybe, at that point, I should’ve just gone back to sleep, but something told me not to, the same something that said to go outside and make sure it was in fact nothing.
I opened the door and stepped out onto the steps I was convinced were going to snap under my weight one of these days. The night was cold. Snow was beginning to fall. Little flecks of white drifted through the sky, landing in my hair and on my bare shoulders.
Fuck, it’s freezing out here.
I rubbed my arms vigorously with my palms as I swept my gaze over the small area in front of my house, and then they landed on the toppled-over metal garbage can. I sighed and rolled my eyes, feeling like an idiot for being so spooked by something so stupid, and I went to pick it up when a sound—much smaller and quieter than the crash before—came from beneath my rotten steps.