from under him and reaches out, pushing me farther back into my seat. It feels like his blood is boiling under his skin, and his right hand does this little twitch—I don’t know what it means, but I know it means something by the knife-sharp expression on his face.
I stand up and step farther back out of his reach, waiting to see if he’ll get up and follow. I don’t care if he hurts me, I just want to know what’s driving this inner…no, instinctive need to protect himself against those particular words.
Sam is right. Isn’t this proof? Isn’t the fact that some part of him recognizes those names proof that he’s still Lucas somewhere in there? Whoever did this to him, they turned the good things in his life to pain—agony. He doesn’t attack, he just recoils, drawing his legs up tight against his chest. He’s not a monster, not like me. He’s just…hurting.
I realize I’m crying and have to turn around to scrub the tears away. Not that he’s even looking—not that he’d even understand.
Would he?
“We don’t have to talk about them yet.” My voice is strained as I take the seat again. He’s shifted his eyes down to the floor; his arms are locked around his knees.
I feel so restless, like my bones could jump up out of my skin and start pacing the room, but I stay where I am, just breathing in and out. The only way I can deal with this Lucas is to focus on the Lucas he was. The time he cried about the bird’s nest that fell out of a tree. How he would come home with bruises from the other boys in his class and refuse to talk about it. On the nights I had nightmares about the little shadow creatures that lived under my bed, he would come into my room and sleep on the floor to protect me from them. He’d tell me stories until I fell asleep.
Hours pass. I don’t need to look at the clock to know this. The sunlight shifts, gliding over the walls and floor.
There’s this one thing…there’s this thing I used to do to comfort myself. One glimpse of Greenwood I let in on the days that felt too hard to get through at the facility. If it brings him even a fraction of comfort, then it’s worth trying.
“We were in the car in the parking garage—it was a few weeks before they separated us. You told me this story…what was happening to Greenwood while we were gone. Sir Sammy was still there to protect it, but because she didn’t have the other two keys—our keys—she couldn’t get inside. The forest, all of the trees—their branches grew together, weaving and lengthening until they made one big knot. The bushes stretched up and up, their thorns popping out like spikes. The animals trapped behind the wall drifted off into a magical enchanted sleep. Everything was just suspended. Time stopped. No one grew old, no one ever got sick, but no one was happy, either; no one got to play and have fun.”
I lean against the chair’s winged back, closing my eyes. I like that idea—that everything will be the same when we finally go back.
“Then one day, Sir Sammy came to find us. She set out on a quest across roads, through forests, even over rivers and swamps. She brought just enough gold to trade with the trolls who guarded the bridges. She tricked the ghosts into turning her invisible to pass the roadblocks and checkpoints….I think you said she even had to run through a burning castle? But she found us eventually, and we all went home together.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever studied anyone as closely as I’m watching Lucas now. It’s the only reason I notice that his legs aren’t tucked as tightly against his chest as they were before, that he’s starting to stretch out again. His breathing is slow, easy.
Better, I think. That’s better than before. He’s calm enough that sleep is at least a possibility. The story didn’t upset him—interesting.
I keep going. I tell him the story of how Greenwood came to be—the same story that he wrote in that ratty green notebook with the dirt-stained cover. He had hundreds of these little tales, and we must have acted all of them out at some point, but it’s so hard to reach back through the years and retrieve the memories when I fought so hard to get them