First of all, I don’t know if this thing is even edible. Will it make me sick?
Second of all, even if it is edible, no way am I letting him put it in my mouth.
“What is it?” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“Don’t you trust me?” he asks.
“No offense, I don’t trust anyone.”
“Just try it. It’s mostly water, but it’s good. That’s why they call them honeysuckles. ’Cause of the honey.”
“Honey?”
“Sort of, but it’s not that thick. It’s good, trust me.”
I narrow my eyes, looking at him, then at the little flower. I pull the white nub and watch the string pull through the back of the bud. A little drop of liquid sits on the end.
I hang it over my tongue, and it drops before I get a chance to change my mind. It tastes a lot like it smells—like springtime. Being reborn. I don’t know what that means exactly, but I like it.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?”
He smirks, so cocky, but he wrings his hands together. “No, that’s not what I want to show you.”
He motions for me to follow him, then he starts running.
He runs along the tree line, then darts inside and disappears. I can’t see where he went.
I should feel afraid. A boy I barely know leading me who knows where. But my own words come back to me. Eventually, you have to trust someone.
In my world, trusting someone can get you killed.
But I don’t feel afraid.
With Jackson, I feel safe.
I jog a little more and see a break in the small tree line. There’s a little path with a bridge over the tiny stream, but I still don’t see Jackson. I walk slowly now, looking around. The little batch of trees is only about ten feet wide. It seems to split two rows of houses; their backyards aren’t visible to each other only because of this little forest.
A dog barks, but I pay no attention. Right now I’m not in the burbs. I’m in my own mini Central Park.
Inside the batch of trees, there’s a tiny clearing with two chairs and a log on its side. Sprinkled around the area are cans of soda and beer, an empty bottle that looks to have once been filled with Jack, and a couple of cigarette butts.
Did Jackson take me to his secret party spot?
Does Jackson really have a party spot?
I walk over the little wooden bridge, and then I see him standing next to a tree, waiting for me, a playful smile on his face.
“What did you want to show me?”
He smiles. “My favorite spot.”
I turn back to the clearing full of beer bottles. Not as glamorous as I’d imagine Jackson would be into, but…
“Oh, not there,” he says, following my gaze. “Some of the kids in the neighborhood meet up here sometimes, but my spot is a bit farther down.”
“Your spot, huh?”
He straightens his shoulders. “Yeah. It’s mine. I claimed it when I was seven.”
He climbs back down into the stream by stepping on some big rocks. It’s almost like he has the path memorized.
“So you did grow up here?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I was just wondering, you know, if we would have played together as kids if…”
He blinks. “I didn’t know you grew up here.”
I nod. “My parents didn’t let me out much.”
I was only ever allowed in my backyard. They didn’t even trust my friends’ parents to watch me. Sometimes me and Lo, my only friend my age, played back there, climbing the one big tree and swinging from the play set. But as we got older, that just wasn’t enough. We both wanted more, except I wasn’t allowed any more.
So I had to find new ways to live.
Ways they couldn’t keep me from trying.
I follow Jackson down into the little stream, slowly and carefully stepping on the stones. One of them wobbles beneath me, and I almost fall in, but Jackson takes my hand and keeps me steady. He won’t let me fall.
When we come off the stream, Jackson takes me to a big rock on the bank. Above us is a particularly big tree with branches that hang down just a little. It looks almost like a weeping willow, but the leaves don’t hang down that far.
“Is this your tree?” I ask.
He nods. “You can get to it through the trees, but I figured it was better to take the scenic route with you.”
“Yeah, thanks, I could use a bath.” I lean down and touch the cold water with my fingertips, then flick it at him. He tries to cover his face with his arms. He looks at me like he’s ready to throw a slew of curse words at me, then laughs. “I’ll remember that.”
I smile and join him on the rock. I look around at the trees and the gently flowing water.
I stand and walk back to the tree with saggy branches. I grab on to one of the limbs, like I’m going to climb.
“Want to go up?” he asks me.
I look through the branches and notice a few pieces of wood nailed to the bark leading to a tiny little makeshift tree house.
When I say makeshift, I mean it looks like a death trap. Boards haphazardly joined together, none of them lined up, everything askew. I mean, it looks like I made it. Old, uneven wood and rusted nails.
“Is that thing even safe?”
Jackson smiles. “It’s nicer than it looks. You’ll see.” He hops over the bank of the stream and joins me by the tree. “But you have to get onto that first branch to make it to the ladder. Think you can handle it?”
I shake my head in disbelief. I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but I can’t say no to a challenge.
I take a jump and hang on to the branch. I swing my feet up to it, impressively ungraceful, and cling to it however I can. I pull my up body up and awkwardly am able to twist so I’m sitting on top of the branch. It shakes beneath me.
“You need practice,” Jackson says.
I look at my scraped-up arms. “I’m not bleeding. I call that a success.”
I stand on the branch and test out the ladder. This isn’t going to be fun, but I don’t let myself second-guess it. I’m already this far.
While I’m climbing the boards, trying to keep myself from shaking, reminding myself not to look down, Jackson easily pulls himself into the tree with just one quick jump and makes it all the way up to the tree house without using the ladder at all.
I pause to watch him. He makes it look so easy it’s crazy.
“Cheater,” I say when I finally reach the bottom of the tree house and pull myself up.
“How am I cheating?”
“You’ve climbed this tree too many times.”
He laughs, and I roll my eyes.
The tree house is like four feet wide. Just enough for a little bookshelf full of junk and a couple of beanbag chairs. Technically, you’d be hard-pressed to call it a house. It doesn’t even have walls. There are wood beams for a floor and a small plastic sheet he can pull out as a canopy, I guess in case it rains.
“See? Not everything is as it seems.”
I smile. “Yeah, this tree house definitely isn’t trying too hard.”
“Hey!” he says. “This is my house. I built it with my own two hands. You think you can do better?”
I shrug. He’s joking, but I can tell he’s also serious. “Jackson.”
“Yeah?”
“I think it looks great.”
He rocks his head back and forth, like he’s deciding whether to accept my sort of apology, but the smile on his face tells me he’s just giving me a hard time. “Okay,” he finally says.
He flops down on the beanbag chair and pats the spot next to him.
I pause for a beat, then sit next to him, my arm brushing his as I do.
Thanks to the lack of walls and all, there’s actually a pretty good view. You can see a baseball field not too far out and the big blue sky.
For a while we sit there, watching the clouds roll by, a slight breeze trickling in and blowing my hair back just slightly.
“Anna?” Jackson asks lightly.
I blink, his seriousness taking me by surprise.
I look into his kind hazel eyes, which are a bit closer than I’m used to in this tiny space. I wish I knew more about him and what those eyes have seen.
But that would mean him knowing more about me and what I’ve seen… I don’t even want to know the things I’ve seen. I definitely don’t want him to.
Now he’s looking at me. At my mouth. And suddenly I find it very hard to do anything but feel an excited anticipation.
For a second, I think he might kiss me.
For a second, I want him to.
I lean toward him, hoping he’ll meet me, ready for it to happen, when he instead asks me something I didn’t expect.
“What happened to you?” he says lightly, looking down at his hands like he’s afraid of my reaction.
My stomach drops, and I look away. I was kind of hoping to avoid this conversation…like forever. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we said we needed to get to know each other…for the project, I mean.”
My eyebrows pull up, and I look away, unsure of how I should be feeling about this right now.
“I don’t mean to pry. It’s your business, it’s just… I’m curious about you.”
I nod but won’t look him in the eyes anymore. “What do you want to know?” I force myself to say.
“Everything,” he whispers, and a blush inches across his cheeks. “Like was it really you in the missing posters?”
I nod, knowing there’s no way of getting around that.
“So what happened? You don’t have to tell me,” he says. Contradicting himself.
I take in a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
“I grew up here, but I had some problems with my parents. Or they had problems with me…” My stomach twists even thinking about my past. Somehow, here in this tree with Jackson, I’m not that girl.
I’m not the lost and lonely but pretending to be okay thirteen-year-old, and I’m not Exquisite the hooker. I’m…just Anna. And talking about my past, any of it, would be like marring this moment.
“…so I moved in with my cousin in New York City.” I wince, calling Luis my cousin, but how else can I explain this? Not like I haven’t lied to the police about who Luis is before, anyway. I once had to pretend he was my brother so he could bail me out of jail. Talk about embarrassing.
“What about the posters? Your parents were looking for you.”
I nod, hating how easily the lies come. “I didn’t tell them where I went. Took them a long time to figure it out.”
“That’s not so bad. The way people talk about you, and sometimes the way you react to things, I thought…” He looks down at his hands, his feet no longer swinging.
“I know. I get it. Just because it’s easy to explain like that doesn’t mean it’s simple. Life in New York…wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.”
My eyes sting, tears threatening to expose me, but I keep it under control. He can’t see what’s really underneath.
What would he think if he saw the real me? The disgusting bits that I won’t let see the light of day?
Would he still like me? Still be my friend?
If I never stop hiding, can my wounds ever really heal?
Because as much as I like to think about my nightmares as scars…I know that’s not true. Scars are healed wounds. Mine are still festering.
Jackson’s hand brushes against my cheek, right there in that stupid little tree house in our own mini Central Park, and my stomach flutters. I take a deep breath, holding on to that feeling, and then it spreads from my head to my toes.
I want him to pull me closer. I lick my lips, wondering what he’ll do.
He leans in and kisses my cheek, then pulls away and points to the way we came. “We should head back.”
I take a long look out of the tree house, at the world around me, and let myself cool down. I don’t want him to see how much I enjoyed his lips on my cheek. How much I wanted him to kiss me on my mouth.
Finally, I let him lead the way out of the tree house.
My cheek’s still on fire from where he touched me.
Would he still look at me like this if he knew who I really was?
I can’t tell him the truth. It’s not worth the risk. I can’t do it. I won’t.
But maybe he doesn’t need to know the truth.
That part of my life is gone.
I have a chance for something new now.
I have a chance for something good.
Chapter Nineteen
He walks me all the way home, and things are real quiet between us. Now that we’re so far from the tree house, I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t kiss me. I mean really kiss me. On the lips. Did he see something in me he doesn’t want?
“Hey, I was wondering,” he says. “Homecoming is next weekend. Would you, I mean, do you want to go?”
Oh.
“Homecoming?”
Seriously? That’s another high school thing I thought was long behind me.
And absolutely something I never thought he’d ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I was just going to go with some friends, but if you wanted to go with me…”
“Oh… I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” His face falls for an instant so I quickly say, “Not you, I mean. The dance. I get enough looks at school.”
“Yeah, I know. I get enough looks at school, too.” He smirks. “But I still want to go with you.”
“Maybe.”
“Just think about it.”
“Okay,” I say. Smooth. “Thanks, you know, for showing me around the neighborhood and stuff.” Wow, that sounds stupid.
“Sure,” he says, then waves good-bye and walks back toward his house.
I wait for a moment, unsure what to do, what to say. What to think.
Homecoming. Pretty sure that’s something Luis and I used to laugh about, how stupid those things were. How we were so far beyond that.
But maybe I’m not as far beyond it as I thought.
I walk inside to see the dog chained in the entryway again. She’s sitting up, her ears perked, when I walk in. She takes a step forward and nudges my hand with her nose. I give her a quick rub behind the ears.
I look up and my gaze crashes into my surprised mom standing in the hallway, holding a towel and a coffee mug. Her eyes narrow as she looks from the dog to me, but then she smiles and says, “Hey, honey.”
I wait for her to say something about Zara. She told me once already to keep my distance.
But I guess she’s going to take a chance, because instead she goes back to drying the dishes and says, “I almost didn’t hear you come in. We got a huge vicious dog, and he doesn’t even bark when people walk in the house.”
Did my mom seriously just make a joke?
Maybe I should laugh, but it’s so weird.
“It’s not a he,” I finally say.
“What?”
I raise my eyebrow. “Mom. It’s a girl dog.”
She looks at the dog, at me, back at the dog. “How do you know?”
“How do you not know? She doesn’t have boy parts, pretty simple.”
“Are you sure?” She puts her towel down. “Well,” she says and clears her throat. “They told us he was neutered when we got him. We just assumed.”
I stand at the edge of the kitchen, able to see both my mother and the dog. “You know a dog is supposed to be more than just protection. They have feelings.”
“I know they do.” She pauses. “Is there something else you think we should be doing?”
After a moment, I say, “We should call her Zara.”
My mom takes a deep breath. “Okay, honey. Dinner will be ready in an hour.”
I pause to look at Zara, who’s watching me with those big brown eyes, her tail twitching. I’d like to take her with me now, but I think I’d still rather keep our relationship secret if I can. I don’t need one more thing to figh
t about with the parents who clearly still don’t know what to think about me.
I play a little music and lie on my bed and try to pretend I am someone else.
I listen down the hall as my mother huffs and puffs, trying to coax Zara outside. By the sounds of it, she’s not having an easy time.
About a half hour later I know my father is home because Zara is barking like crazy. I hear the door open, my father yell at her to shut up, then footsteps to the back door. He must be putting her outside.
I sigh. I wish he’d treat her better. I pick up my math book and decide to make an attempt at homework, honestly just for something to do. I should have stayed in the woods, if you can call that little batch of trees that. It was much better than sitting here doing nothing.
Finally I hear a knock on my door. “Dinner’s ready.”
I head to the dining room to a nice big dinner. Grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, and fresh dinner rolls. My stomach growls just looking at it.
This time I’ll try to finish the full meal before starting a fight. Yes, that sounds like a good plan.
“How was your day, sweetheart?”
I look up, unsure if my father was talking to me or my mom. They’re both looking at me. I grab a big scoop of mashed potatoes.
“Fine,” I say.
“Anything interesting going on?”
“A boy asked me to homecoming.” The words are out before I realize what I said. That’s what I get for letting my guard down.
I have absolutely no idea how they’ll react to me saying someone invited me to a dance, and I’m honestly a little scared.
My father sits up straighter. “What guy?”
Oh God, here we go.
“Jackson. He lives nearby. It’s not a big deal.”
My mother and father stare at me, but I continue to eat. My mom knows about the Jackson thing, but I know she’ll hop onto whatever my father says about the matter. It all comes down to if he’s okay with it, and I’m getting the feeling he’s not.
I shove a piece of grilled chicken smothered in garlicky mashed potatoes into my mouth. My God, this stuff is good. I can feel a meltdown coming, and I want as much of this food as I can get.
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