The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel - By Sarah Addison Allen Page 0,24
cafeteria and look out the window and see you up there on the bleachers. I’ve been looking for you all summer. Where have you been?”
Her mouth gaped and she felt like punching him on the arm. He had a girlfriend named Holly who, despite being in Dulcie Shelby’s group Sassafras, was mostly nice. And they’d been going together forever. People even referred to them as a single entity. Sawyernholly. “What is wrong with you?” Julia said. “You and Holly belong together. You match.”
“I’m just saying I’m sorry I never talked to you. I’ve always wanted to. I’ve always wanted …” His eyes went to her lips, and she was suddenly very aware of how close they were, of how he was leaning in toward her.
His lips were inches from hers when she turned away. “Go away, Sawyer. Go back to your nice, perfect life.” She felt tears come to her eyes, and she wiped at them with the back of her hands. They came away streaked with her thick black eyeliner. The tears kept coming and she kept wiping her face, knowing she was making it worse. God, why didn’t Sawyer just go and leave her to her ugly misery?
Sawyer very calmly took off his white polo shirt and handed it to her. “Go on. Use it.”
She reluctantly took it and scrubbed her face with the shirt. It smelled like something green and fresh—like flower stems.
When she finally stopped crying, she looked at the shirt in her hands. She balled it up, embarrassed. She’d ruined it. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care about the shirt. Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.” And her eyes started watering again. “I don’t want to go away to school. But my dad doesn’t want me anymore. He has Beverly now.” The school had been Beverly’s idea, of course. Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut about the cuts?
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sawyer said.
She just shook her head. He didn’t understand, after all.
He reached over to her and hesitantly pushed some of her crisp pink hair behind her ear. “I forgot what you looked like without makeup.”
“I disappear.”
“No. You’re beautiful.”
She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t believe him. “Go to hell, Sawyer.”
“You can believe whatever you want. But I don’t lie.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re perfect.” She paused, then turned to him. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“I’ve always thought that.”
“What about these?” she said, drawing up the sleeves of the button-down she was wearing. She showed him the lines on her arms. Her father and Beverly had emptied her room of any sharp objects, like she was a toddler, so many of the deeper cuts were healed over, but she would still use her fingernails when she got anxious. “Do you think these are beautiful?”
Sawyer actually recoiled, which was exactly what she wanted him to do. It was proof. She really was unlovable. “Christ. Did you do that to yourself?”
She pulled the sleeves down. “Yes.”
She expected him to leave her then, but he didn’t. They sat in silence for a long time. Finally she got tired and leaned back so that she was stretched out on the ground. He watched her, then slowly lowered himself back beside her.
The sky was incredible that night, the moon nearly full and the stars littering the sky like tossed stones. She’d never been away from Mullaby before. Would the sky look like this in Baltimore?
When Sawyer’s stomach growled, he laughed. “I haven’t had anything to eat since the cake I had for lunch,” he said sheepishly.
“You had cake for lunch?”
“I’d have cake all the time if I could. You’re going to laugh at this, but I’ll tell you anyway. You know how some people have a sweet tooth? Well, I have a sweet sense. When I was a little boy, I could be playing across town and know exactly when my mother took a cake out of the oven. I could see the scent, how it floated through the air. All I had to do was follow it home. I will fiercely deny that if you ever say anything.”
It was such a surprising thing to admit. She turned her head and saw that he was staring at her again. “You’re charmed,” she said. “But you probably know that already. It’s even in the way you look at people.” She stared at him for a moment, gorgeous and bare-chested in the moonlight. “Yes, you know exactly what power you have.”