on the blue duvet cover, the carpet beige, but everything else matches the bedspread. Light blue walls with white trim. Blue curtains. Bookshelves, posters, a desk with art supplies, and model cars and planes sit on shelves. A PS4 sits on a table under a flatscreen on the wall, and a gumball machine sits on top of his dresser, still half-full. A picture of him and some friends, or cousins maybe, stands next to it, all of them holding a papier-mâché planet they made in class or in summer camp. I lean in close, seeing the same smile on him that I see on Clay’s sometimes.
“He looked like he was going to be Jensen Ackles someday,” she says, sadness in her voice.
I look over, seeing she’s still hovering in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
“He was a cute kid,” I tell her.
“Dynamite personality, too.” She sighs, smiling and crossing her arms. “He would draw spiders on the toilet paper and replace my yogurt with mayo.”
I walk over toward the window, checking out his view. “And what did you do to deserve that?” I tease.
As if he was the instigator. If I know Clay at all, he was simply retaliating.
“I may have replaced the filling in his Oreos with toothpaste,” she says.
I grin.
The room is spotless. Tidy, clean, not a speck of dust. Someone cleans in here regularly, and I’m guessing it’s the one room Clay’s mom doesn’t let anyone touch but herself.
“You loved him a lot.”
“I didn’t realize how much.” She nods. “He was annoying and we fought a lot, but when he got sick, I almost couldn’t breathe.” I hear the tears thicken her voice. “It wasn’t fair for him to go through that. I just wanted it to stop.”
There’s no sign of his illness in this room. No medical equipment. No prescriptions. I have no idea if he died at home or passed in the hospital, but I can bet the family was with him every hour.
Clay’s breathing shakes, and I see her trying to hold back the tears. I walk over, taking her face in my hands.
“Why were you so patient with me?” she whispers. “So tolerant? I didn’t deserve it.”
I lean in, her silky hair brushing the backs of my hands. “Happy people don’t fixate on things they hate,” I explain. “They move on. I knew it was coming from somewhere, Clay.” I glide my hands down her body and circle her waist as we hold each other, and I stare into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter how much money we have or don’t have or how stable our home is. Anyone can have problems.”
I never thought Clay’s life was gold just because she’s rich and beautiful. Happy people don’t act how she did.
She kept up the façade for a long time, though. Resisting me.
“Why did you finally let it happen?” I ask, nearly brushing her nose and gazing at her mouth that I want so badly.
She kisses me softly. “Because for four years, if I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking of you,” she murmurs. “And even then sometimes, in my dreams.”
Her mouth lingers on my cheek, and I know now what the tattoo means. The one on the inside of her finger and what she meant at the theater earlier when she didn’t think I heard her. Within this inch, I’m free.
It’s a paraphrase of a quote from V for Vendetta. A part of us that we’ll never sell—a small piece we keep to ourselves and covet and hold tightly for dear life, because it’s the only place inside of us we truly live.
Just an inch. But it’s ours.
“I wanted to be alone with you and touch you and smell you and talk to you with every part of my body, except my voice,” she says.
My eyelids flutter closed, and I understand. After years of her treatment, my pride is dented, because I should’ve told her to go to hell, but… There was always more. Almost as if I knew we’d be here eventually.
She bites my jaw gently, the heat and wet of her mouth sending tingles spiraling down to my stomach.
“Do you hear that?” she asks. And then kisses me where she bit. “And that?”
I nod. I hear you.
“Take me to your room,” I tell her.
“You should call home.” She continues to peck on my jaw. “Tell them you won’t be home tonight.”
“Later.”
Macon tracks my phone, so he never really worries.
She pulls me, backing up toward her bedroom as I pull the door closed