Winterwood

But she continues talking, like she doesn’t even hear me. “I told him he’s an asshole and he can sleep alone tonight.” She waves a hand dismissively in the air, her head rolling to one side, like she can barely keep herself upright. I’m surprised she stood up for me—surprised and grateful. Maybe she does think we’re friends. And for a moment I want to reach out and hug her.

“Men are jerks,” she blurts out, and her eyes swivel around the room, blinking on Oliver. I wonder if she’s going to say something to him—call him a jerk too, say that he’s just like all the rest. But then her gaze wheels back to the woodstove, like she’s going to be sick.

“Maybe you should sit down,” I say, touching her shoulder.

She flinches away and swivels herself toward the couch, plops onto the cushions, and pulls the blankets up to her throat in one swift motion. She closes her eyes and mutters, “Sing me a song, Nora.” Like she’s a little kid who wants a bedtime story. Tea and cookies and a kiss to the forehead.

“Suzy?” I ask softly, but a soft snore escapes her mouth. She’s already asleep.

Her hair lies draped across her cheekbone, her mouth slack, and I wonder if she’ll remember any of this by morning. If she’ll remember what the boys said.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver says behind me. He moves closer, and just his proximity makes my stomach ache. Deep and strange. Sailor’s knots inside my belly.

“For what?”

His voice is low when he speaks, like he doesn’t want to wake Suzy—but I doubt she’ll be stirring anytime soon. “For what those guys said.”

“I’m used to people talking about me,” I tell him, shaking my head and letting the side of my mouth tug into a smirk. I want him to see that it doesn’t bother me, that I’m stronger than he might think. But still, I touch my grandmother’s ring and let my mind click over everything the boys said at the bonfire, how they talked about voices in their cabin, how they weren’t sure who to blame: Oliver or Max.

They’re just paranoid, I think.

They’re hearing things that aren’t really there.

“I don’t need to stay here,” Oliver says, his voice cautious, as if he doesn’t really mean the words he says. His eyes stray to Suzy, now occupying the couch—the place where he’s slept the last two nights. “I can find somewhere else.”

It’s odd how easily you can fool yourself into believing there is nothing to fear. How easily you can look at a boy you hardly know and trust every word that leaves his lips. Maybe I am a fool. Or maybe the buzzing, tenuous feeling in the center of my chest, the fragile stutter of my heartbeat, means something. Maybe there is truth in that feeling.

A feeling I shouldn’t ignore.

A feeling I don’t want to.

“No,” I say at last, his gaze on me a moment too long, making it hard to breathe. “You can sleep in the loft.”

His eyes soften and the room starts to quiver, walls melting from the edge of my vision, the clock in the kitchen clicking too loud. Oliver blurs out of focus, and I think about him standing in the trees, watching me at the bonfire. He followed the boys from camp because he was worried about me. And I’m not sure how to feel or what to say, but my heart is spurring against my ribs, causing little fits of pain.

I look away from him, afraid the house is going to splinter around us, afraid the clock on the wall will cease to tick.

“You all right?” he asks, touching my arm, my hand.

But when his eyes meet mine, all the words dissolve on my tongue, catch inside my teeth, so I only nod. Fine, fine, fine. Everything is fine. My head doesn’t feel like it’s going to cleave in half and let all my thoughts spill out onto the floor. The house doesn’t feel like it’s going to cave in. Time doesn’t feel like it’s going to shatter.

I’m fine.

He releases my hand and I walk to the front door to lock it—sensing a storm building outside. Not from the mountains, but from something else.

A storm made of fury and spite woven inside reckless boys’ hearts.

I light a candle—a ritual now—and walk to the stairs. The house no longer swaying. The clock no longer a drum against my ears.

Without a word, Oliver follows.

Maybe he belongs here now, with me, inside this house.

No one has ever belonged to me before—not really.

In the loft, my bed is still unmade, pillows slumped and wrinkled from the previous night. And Oliver stands at the top of the stairs, scanning my room, the stacks of books on the floor, while Fin plods past him—making a low huff sound as he settles onto the rug at the foot of the bed. “I’ll sleep on the floor,” Oliver says, eyeing the place where Fin has curled into a ball, nose tucked under his tail.

“No, there’s plenty of room,” I say, hastily straightening the quilt and pillows. But Oliver still doesn’t move any farther into my bedroom, like he might turn and retreat down the stairs. “It doesn’t have to be weird,” I say, lifting an eyebrow. “It’s a bed, that’s all. A place to sleep.”