and blue peeked out above what my oversize T-shirts could hide and my stomach fluttered with emotions. I wanted to see you. Even if the thought of seeing you made me feel anxious.
I spent my afternoon and evening with pictures of Columbia spread out across my floor. Father hadn’t found them. I dared to look at them even when he was in the house. My fingers grazed over the classical architecture, the columns, and the beautiful red brick. There were so many photos that the printer at school had run out of color ink and the last few photos were a mishmash of black, white, and color.
It didn’t matter. Sitting in the middle of all the photos, I felt there. I was one of the blurs with a backpack stepping into Dodge Hall. I was someone who belonged amid pillars, and stone, and green patches of grass where I could sit and think beside a bronze casting of Rodin’s Le Penseur. I didn’t hear the loud TV down the hall, or feel the soreness of my ribs, or think about the fact that I was sitting in a house with cracked and peeling walls where I locked my room at night.
I was there.
Not here.
And I was happy.
I picked up each photo like they were pieces of gold and tucked them away. I would take photos of my own soon. Very soon.
I fell asleep smiling.
* * *
Hours later I heard a tat-tat-tat! The tapping on my window woke me up and I shot up, bolt straight. I jerked my gaze to my door and heaved in a breath. Still locked. I looked at my window. Had it been the wind? The tree? I never realized how close the nearby branch came curling toward my window.
Tat-tat-tat! Rocks. Little rocks were being tossed at my window. I narrowed my eyes before throwing off my blankets and running to the window. I stared out of it and held my breath, and there you were.
Your smile was wide as you perched on that branch. With a handful of rocks, you looked like you were twelve years old. I opened my window and stuck my head out, whispering, “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“You can’t read a story like that and then not show up for school the next day. You practically torpedoed out of class yesterday and then you avoided me the rest of the day.”
“I wasn’t trying to avoid you.” I absolutely had been trying to avoid you.
“I was on the verge of literal heart failure.”
“Doubtful.” I leaned against my window frame. “Besides … patience is a virtue.”
“I’m not very virtuous.”
I smiled. “I noticed.” I swallowed and then looked back into my room. “You should go.”
“Come out with me.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Please. I need to show you something.”
“August, I can’t leave my house.”
“Oh, c’mon. Live a little.” You reached out your hand and pointed to the lattice. “We don’t have to stay out long.”
I leaned out the window. It did look sturdy, it did seem easy, it did sound like an adventure that felt like the first of many.
I shifted my gaze back to you and grinned but when I did, your smile was gone, your eyes were wide, and you stared at me. I blinked, confused.
Then I saw your eyes taking in the whole of me. In my tank top. With all of the bruises blooming over my skin.
I stepped back into my room’s shadows. I felt naked, ugly. I felt like all the balloons that had my heart soaring were popping at once. You saw me. The real me. The parts of me that are broken. “August, leave.” I grabbed the top of the window and started to pull it shut, to shut you out—
—and you reached out and stopped the window from closing. “Ellie.”
“Just go.”
“What happened?”
“August…” The sadness hit me like a tidal wave. The ferocity of it gripped me by the throat. “Just go,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Ellie Walker. Please don’t shut me out. Please. Tell me what happened.”
And even as I felt like I was clawing for breath and dragging myself out of the torrent of whispers and despair, I realized I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you everything.
“Ellie, please.” Your voice broke.
“We aren’t twelve anymore. We can’t go around playing make-believe or slaying imaginary monsters. There are real monsters in this world. And”—I pointed to the branch—“you are going to break that branch!” I was so close to the cool night air