What We Saw at Night - By Jacquelyn Mitchard Page 0,36
when I got back, my sandal was hanging from the door knob.”
“If I had to venture a guess, I’d say someone came along, saw the open door, and closed the door for you. I’d say it was a kind neighbor who’s trying to avoid this misunderstanding, and I wouldn’t blame him or her.” He sighed, but his tone was not unkind. “It had to be one of the other building residents. Let’s go knock on some doors and we’ll find out which one.”
Let’s not, I thought. Let’s not increase the percentage of people in Iron Harbor who think I’m nuts.
“I’m fine now,” I said. “I guess you’re right. You don’t have to knock on any doors. Seriously.”
Officer Mike sat with me, waiting for Tessa to return home. I laid Tavish in his crib and suddenly remembered that I hadn’t even looked at the text I’d received. I dug my phone from my jeans pocket.
It wasn’t from Rob.
It was from BLOCKED.
Have fun but don’t get hurt.
Instinct usually doesn’t lie. Human beings are the only animals who ignore instinct, but, like Rob once said, we’re trained out of it. Parkour was a way to rediscover instinct and tap into that buried ability to survive, no matter what the cost. That crawling sensation I’d felt by the lake, the same sensation I felt right now, amounted to a pure reflexive reaction: a warning that someone knew what I was looking for.
Who would have known that?
Only someone who was watching me.
The next day, out of the blue, Juliet left a big bouquet of daisies on my porch, along with a handwritten note.
Is the cold war over? Can I come and see you tomorrow night? Even for a movie? I’ll bring enchiladas.
I texted her back: There’s never been any war.
A moment later my phone rang. Juliet was a gush of “How are you?” and “I’m so sorry I haven’t stopped by!” and other crap that sounded as if it were coming from some random XP staffer at the hospital, not the best friend I thought I’d known my whole life. But I played along. I told Juliet that I was okay. Just recovering and babysitting. She was probably right that I had been hallucinating dead girls and demon drivers. For now, I was just laying low and getting better. Was that cool with her?
“I guess it’s cool?” she said. If it sounded like a question, it probably was, for the both of us.
How could I say what I felt? That she should have been with me the whole summer? Bringing me magazines and lip gloss, staying over, driving me around, taking me to the movies, French-braiding my hair, filling a bucket with soapy water and giving Angela pedicures, regaling me with her last triumph of running into Caitlin buying size 9 pants at the used boutique, then verbally slaying her?
Nothing is more pitiful than asking for what you know you can never have.
Along those lines, Rob wasn’t there, either.
Sure, there had been the kiss. And the accident. Was he really that tortured over it? I’d forgiven him! I’d have dropped the rope if Blondie had been gunning toward me. I’d hid behind the fountain like a coward, hadn’t I? By now, Rob should have still been able to be one of my best friends if he couldn’t be my boyfriend. But the longer we went without communicating, the harder it became for me to make the first move. We should have been able to overcome any awkwardness. Rob should have been sending me crazy YouTube videos of Parkour, or just random stuff to make me laugh, or texting me dumb jokes with excruciating puns. (Don’t speak, my love. Just be mime.) He should have been buying me gross desserts too greasy and fattening for any girl to eat and ordering pizza from Gitchee with four kinds of meat—one that Gideon insisted was venison, but which made us want to count the dogs in town.
Yes, with Juliet, there had always been that little crackle of caution, that inner voice: Be slow, take care, nothing is what it seems. Instinct. I knew to trust that now better than ever. But I’d never felt it with Rob. Something had changed though, as sure as you wake up after a night so hot you sweated through your sheets, and suddenly, it’s the fall. We couldn’t have stayed the same forever, even if none of this had ever happened. The tres compadres could only last so long. Somewhere deep inside,