Winterwood

I reach the window on the second floor, crouching low away from the wind, and tap against the glass.

Nora lifts her head to face me. She scratches her hands through her hair, her eyes cautious and dark in the shadow of the room.

“Nora,” I say against the glass, pointing at the window for her to unlock it. But she doesn’t move toward me. She takes a step back. And maybe I don’t blame her. Maybe I’m the villain. My feet slip an inch on the snow, but I right myself before sliding toward the edge of the roof. “Please,” I say, unsure if she can hear me.

She closes her eyes, as if she doesn’t think I’m real. As if I might vanish if she wishes for it hard enough. But when she opens them, I’m still here. Her mouth sets in place and she takes two swift steps toward the window, reaches out for the lock, and slides it free.

I place my palms against the sides of the window and push it up in the frame, then duck into the room, bringing the cold air and snow with me.

“Are you okay?” I ask, afraid to move too close to her, afraid I’ll scare her.

Her mouth pulls into a line. “What are you doing?” she asks. “How did you know I was here?”

“I followed Fin.”

She glances at the closed door behind her.

“What happened?” I ask. “Why are you in here?”

She backs away from me again, her fingers tugging at the hems of her sleeves.

“They locked me in,” she says, her voice turned sour, and she rubs her hands up her arms, making herself small, closed off. I hate that she’s afraid of me; I hate that she looks at me with darkness in her eyes; I hate that every move I make causes her to shiver, to twitch away from me.

“Who?” I ask.

“Rhett and the others.”

Anger boils up into my chest, red-hot. Fury that makes me want to break down the door and go find them. Make them pay for doing this to her.

My eyes flash to the locked door, and another part of me thinks maybe I shouldn’t have come at all, seeing the fear in her eyes, the mistrust—but I also can’t leave her here. Caged like this. Awaiting some fate that’s yet to be decided.

“I think they’re hiding Max’s body,” she says cautiously, like she regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth.

Max’s body. The words feel wrong. A body hidden, concealed. The idea doesn’t fit with my memory, so I push it away. I swallow and hold out a hand to Nora, but I don’t move any closer to her. “We need to get out of here,” I say.

Her fingers release the sleeves of her coat, but they curl into fists instead of reaching for me. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she says, her voice rising.

Footsteps pass by outside, probably just one of the boys looking for the bathroom, then they vanish down the hall.

“I found the watch,” Nora blurts out, her voice lower this time. “Max’s watch.” In the dim light I can see her features change, the soft roundness of her cheeks turns hollow, her eyes crease at the corners, like she is trying to see something at a distance, just out of focus. “In your coat pocket,” she adds. “You had a dead boy’s watch in your pocket.”

My chin dips to the floor, then back up to her. I knew this moment would come, that she would ask about the watch. And a cold thread of ice trickles down my spine, down my fingertips, settling into my toes. “I know,” I say.

“Did you kill him?” she asks, the thing she really wants to know the root of her fear. I don’t blame her for it. Still, the words hang in the air, dissolving there, like broken pieces of glass—sharp edged—ready to tear me open.

“No,” I answer, but my voice sounds tight, the word forced out. A little white lie so tiny it’s easily forgotten, glanced over. Hardly there at all.

She shakes her head. “I don’t believe you.” And her voice rises too loud again, eyes watering at the edges, holding back tears. Yet, I see doubt in her, uncertainty shifting just behind her pupils—she’s trying to see if I could really be a murderer. If I could take someone else’s life and lie about it. If I’m a killer.

She steps back, slinking into the dark, farther away from me. “Why are they protecting you?” she asks, she shouts. “Rhett and Jasper and the others? Why are they covering up what happened?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think they’re protecting me.”

A second passes and snow collects on the carpeted floor at my feet, music screeches from downstairs, rising up through the floorboards. It feels like we’re stuck in an odd-shaped dream. In a room, in a house, where neither of us belong.

“Then what’s going on?” Her voice sounds frightened and small again. Like a tiny shell cracking open, revealing the fragile thing inside. And I want so bad to reach forward and touch her, tell her that it’s okay, that I’m not what she thinks I am. But I can’t. Because I’m not sure. I might be the monster.

I might have done something bad.