“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Even if you did abandon me to Eric and his friends my first day of school.”
She looked at him in shock, and he started laughing. “I’m kidding!” he said. “I’m just teasing.”
She made a mock angry face. “You better watch it.”
He smiled. “I know.”
She really liked his smile. And his face, which had little flakes of snow melting on it. She was so used to seeing that face-his eyes, his smile-and now she wouldn’t.
“My dad told me not to keep asking you,” he said. “Because he said it’s your business and it sounded like you’d made up your mind. But… are you sure you have to go? You really could stay with us.”
She wished she could explain why she had to get away from Llewellyn, from everything about the Lones and their house and this town. And why it was so important that she go to Portland, where Nason had disappeared. She knew it would sound silly if she said it, but she felt like she would be able to look for Nason in Portland. Maybe she could find her, even though Rick hadn’t. Not going to Portland when she had the chance would be to forget Nason. Or acknowledge she must be dead. And she would never do that. Never.
She had known it would be hard to see Sean, but not like this. She’d felt so good before. So satisfied. And that delicious… tingling feeling, when she imagined choking Mr. Lone. But now it was this goodbye that was real. She wanted to go back to her room and hide. But she also wanted to stay.
“Remember last year?” she said. “When you walked me here after the party?”
“Yeah. That was a good night.”
The first part had been good, yes. Of course, he didn’t know what Mr. Lone had done to her after. But that didn’t matter anymore. It felt far away, detached. Mr. Lone was dead. He would never do anything to her again. He would never do anything to anyone.
“I remember so many things about that night,” she said. “It was warm. There was a full moon. And the trees looked silver.”
He smiled. “I remember you laughed a lot. I really liked that.”
She looked at him, and felt her eyes get wet again. “I remember you touched my shoulder in such a nice way. And my hair. And my cheek. Do you remember that?”
He nodded quickly, as though afraid to speak.
She felt the tears spill over. “Would you touch me like that again?” she whispered.
He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, and what she saw in his eyes made something melt inside her. He took off his gloves and brushed away her tears. His fingers were warm and gentle. Then he touched her hair, and her neck, again so gently. And then her face again.
A tear ran down his cheek, mingling with the melted snowflakes. “Don’t go,” he said.
She stifled a small sob. “I have to.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“I don’t want to, either. But I have to.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry.”
She brushed away his tears the way he had hers. She looked at his lovely face and smiled, even though she was still crying. And then he leaned in, so slowly, and kissed her.
His lips were so soft, and so warm, and they felt so good against hers. She kissed him back, softly, the way he was kissing her, thinking how good it was that he was finally kissing her, and how long she’d waited for this moment, maybe longer than she’d realized. After a while, she felt his mouth open a little, and she opened hers, too, and she felt his tongue against hers, and a little bolt of pleasure shot from somewhere deep inside her and spread through her whole body.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that. Long enough for him to hold her face in his hands, and for her to do the same to him. Long enough to feel hot inside her jacket, even though it was still snowing.
Eventually, the kiss broke, and they stood there for a moment, looking in each other’s eyes. Sean’s mouth was open. He seemed slightly dazed. She thought she had never seen an expression more honest. More naked. More vulnerable.
“I love you, Livia.”
Her eyes welled up again. “I love you, too.”
“Then why?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I feel like I’m never going to see you again.”
“You will.”
“Maybe this summer?”
“Maybe.” But she doubted it.
He smiled, but his eyes stayed sad. “Maybe we’ll go to college together. Maybe we’ll be on the same wrestling team.”
Again, she doubted it, though she couldn’t say why. “Maybe.”
“I mean, we’re only a little over a year away from graduating. That’s not that long.”
She could tell he was trying to comfort himself as much as reassure her. She didn’t answer. Instead, she touched his lovely face again, then leaned in and kissed him some more. Part of her wished they could stay in the playground forever, just the two of them and the gently falling snow.
But in the morning, she had to go. And she knew everything would be different when she did.
40-THEN
Livia liked Portland. Rick’s apartment was small but comfortable, just as he’d promised. And he never entered her room without knocking first and then waiting for her to invite him in. He never said anything about her locking the bathroom, either-in fact, he probably didn’t even know whether she locked it, because when the bathroom door was closed, he stayed away until she was out.
The apartment was on the top floor of an old five-story brick building in the southwest of the city-a neighborhood called Goose Hollow. Rick’s office, now Livia’s bedroom, overlooked Interstate 405, and Livia had a little trouble at first adjusting to the sounds of highway traffic so close to her window. But in less than a week, she couldn’t even hear the cars anymore unless she listened for them.
The high school was called Lincoln, and it was less than a ten-minute walk from the apartment. Compared to Llewellyn High, Lincoln was enormous-almost fifteen hundred students, grades nine through twelve. With so many students, Livia thought she would be harder to notice, and was glad. But word had gotten out about the wrestling phenomenon from Llewellyn. Some pretty girls asked her to sit at their table in the cafeteria-the popular ones, the queen bees. Livia knew the type, and wanted nothing to do with them. She had survived a nightmare trip across the ocean, then a childhood in a land whose language she didn’t know and where her “savior” was in fact a filthy, disgusting rapist. And she had killed that rapist, killed him with her own hands using the skills she had painstakingly acquired, then engineered her own deliverance to a new life in Portland. Most of all, she had a sister she would die for. What would she have to say to a bunch of manicured socialites who cared for nothing but fashion and makeup and trying to impress popular boys?
So she sat at the table with the nerdy kids instead. They were nice. And smart. And more interesting. At least they knew what it was like to grow up without everything just being given to you and making you think you had done something to deserve it all.
But despite her efforts to steer clear of the popular crowd, various football players and other jocks kept inviting her to parties on weekends. She never went. None of them asked if she was “into chicks,” at least, but they probably speculated. She didn’t care. She didn’t know what she was into. Sean, she supposed. The way her body had felt when they were kissing… she had never felt anything like that.
No, that wasn’t quite right. She felt something similar when she remembered killing Mr. Lone… the same excitement, the same tingling, the same feeling that she needed something more, much more, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what form that thing might take.
Sometimes, she imagined killing Mr. Lone just to bring on the tingling. And one night, while she was lying in bed, restless, her eyes closed, remembering, the tingling became so intense it was unbearable. Without thinking, she touched herself, and was shocked at how good it felt. She pressed harder. She was wet, and her fingers slipped easily inside. That felt so good it made her gasp. She imagined more-his red face, his bulging eyes, his tongue sticking out. She brought her other hand down and rubbed, panting now. The bones of her forearms slicing into his neck, cutting off the blood, the oxygen. Oh, that was so good, it felt so, so good. The rattling sound from his throat while she looked into his dying eyes-