The home was older, the white shingles clearly in need of a coat of paint. Evan let the short white picket gate swing closed behind him and then walked up the path to the hunter-green front door. The lawn had been recently cut, but the flowers in the beds under the front window had died, as had the ones in the pots on the front porch.
A fly bumped into the bulb of the porch light, giving off a tiny buzz. Evan raised his fist and knocked.
Footsteps approached, and then the door swung open. “Hi, Paula,” Evan said, putting his good hand in the pocket of his jeans, his left hand across his chest in a sling. He felt strangely like he was doing something wrong to be there, at this house he’d never visited before and never thought in a million years he’d have reason to.
The house where his so-called enemy lived. At least on paper.
What a joke. It was laughable now. That had been a different life.
Paula hesitated, clearly torn about how to respond to his presence. “She’s resting upstairs,” she finally said, obviously knowing full well why he was there. As if to illustrate the point that he wasn’t welcome in the house, Paula stepped to the side, her body blocking the entrance. Jesus. She was looking at him the way she always had in school. With distrust. Contempt. Did she still hold a grudge against him for what his father had done to her friend’s family? Hadn’t Noelle explained to her how they’d worked together? How they’d bonded? Or was it that, like him, she’d been unable to put their experience into more than a handful of words?
“Let him in, Paula.” He leaned in slightly as Paula turned around, both of them peering up at Noelle, who stood on the stairs, hair mussed, eyes a little swollen but not like they’d been at the police station days before.
He felt momentarily disoriented seeing her in a gray sweatshirt and jeans after having seen her in the same outfit for so long. For a moment he thought he’d leaped backward, to the time before. To the time when they’d been different people. But he hadn’t. He was here. And she was only a few feet away. He nudged past Paula, who made a tiny gasping sound as he rushed up the stairs. As soon as he reached Noelle, he pulled her into his chest, carefully avoiding where his damaged hand lay. He held her, not just her two lone fingers, but her, all of her, nothing between them at all. He held her, and he could finally breathe. Finally.
She pulled back and shot a glance over his shoulder. By the look on Noelle’s face, he imagined Paula still there, staring disapprovingly up at them. But she simply turned and led him to her room.
“She’s staying with you?” he asked once she’d closed and locked the door to her bedroom.
Noelle nodded, sitting down on the bed. He was glad Noelle wasn’t alone. He’d pictured her that way, standing in an empty house, grieving her father who she’d never gotten to say goodbye to. Another parent lost suddenly. And his family was entwined in that loss, too, though in a completely different way. He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t, not right then.
He’d passed by the officer sitting in front of her house and was glad she had that security, at least temporarily. When that was no longer the case . . . maybe he could convince her to stay with him. She pulled the cuffs of her sweatshirt over her hands, fidgeting. He hadn’t known her to fidget before, not when he’d watched her in school and not when she’d occupied the cage next to him.
“How’s your hand?” she asked, nodding to his sling.
“It’s okay. I have surgery scheduled on Friday. My doctor thinks he can fix it. The plastic surgeon has high hopes, too,” he said, gesturing to the cuts on his face. “I’ll be good as new.”
She let out a small breathy laugh. They both knew that was an impossibility. For his hand and anything else. If only.
He looked around her room briefly, noting the shabby white furniture that he’d bet anything she’d had since she was a kid. The unicorn stickers half peeled off the side of the desk confirmed his thought.
Her bookshelf was loaded down with books, not just in rows but with singular copies wedged in along the top. He wanted to take a minute to glance through them, but not now. It occurred to him, though, that he knew her as well as a person could know anyone, and also barely knew her at all. “What’s your favorite color?” he asked.
She looked briefly confused but then smiled. “Blue.”
“That’s pretty broad.”
“Turquoise, then. The color of that Easter egg dye that comes in those little kits from the grocery store.”