Page 30 of Little Bird
If only my father would listen.
I sense something then—that feeling you get when you know you aren’t alone—and look up, expecting to see a deer or squirrel or fox in the clearing with me. Instead, I see wild blonde hair and wide-set hazel eyes. A lush mouth that wants kissing. And as she moves closer, I can smell her—that unique scent she’s worn since we were kids, that always told me when she was in the room with me. I can feel her, feel the energy of her.
And I’m so angry I could scream. I came out here to get away from her, and instead she follows me and intrudes on my solitude like she has any right to it.
She doesn’t say anything but starts moving the pieces of wood around to give each one space so I can see them more clearly. She’s not intruding, just… helping. The way I taught her to when we were younger.
That doesn’t make me feel any happier about her presence.
“What are you doing?” I ask roughly. “Why are you out here?”
She looks up from her work, her eyes troubled. “I’m helping. I came out here to help.”
I slam the axe into the ground, heedless of any damage I might do to it, and start yanking the wood away from her. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Why are you here? Why did you come back? We were doing just fine and now you’re here putting your hands all over everything. Making it all messy. Why don’t you just go live with your mother?”
Her lips press together firmly, and she stares at me, not answering, and that’s even more annoying than everything else. Because of course she can’t just answer me. She owes me answers—she must know she does—and instead she’s standing there, mute.
“Is it because you were in jail? You can’t go home because she’s mad? How did you land in jail, anyhow? What did you do? Let your New York friends talk you into something stupid?”
I don’t know why, but I want to hear her say it. I want her to say she’s been doing illegal things and getting in trouble. That she’s not as perfect as she’s always seemed to be. I need to knock her off the pedestal I’ve kept her on.
I need to stop thinking she’s the only good thing in my life.
She doesn’t answer again, though. Just takes the pliers out of my tool chest and starts working with a piece of wood, taking the loose splinters off it to make it smooth. I hiss, because I taught her that, too—it makes the wood safer to carry for those without gloves—and reach over to yank the pliers away from her. She jerks them away from me, though, and in the process pinches herself with them.
“Fuck!” she hisses, dropping the pliers and clutching at her hand.
I make it to her faster than I can believe and take her hand in mine. “God, are you okay?”
When I look up, I see that her eyes are filling with tears, shadows reaching out from under her eyes. Her mouth is pinched when it should be smiling, and she’s pale.
Christ, has she looked like this since she got here, and I’m just now noticing? What kind of friend am I, if that’s true? Because she looks...
Tense. Tired. Stressed. She’s not the girl she was, and it’s more than just having grown for four years since I last saw her. She looks frightened, like she’s on edge and waiting to run. She’s standing on her toes and twitching when I move.
And now she’s crying just because she pinched her fingers with a pair of pliers.
I’m not the boy I was when she last saw me, but she’s not the girl I knew, either. What the fuck has happened to her since she left this mountain?
And why did it take me so long to notice?
“Are you okay?” I ask, meaning a whole lot more than just her hand.
She looks up at me, biting her lip, and I nearly come undone at her expression. She looks lost, terrified, and completely abandoned, like a puppy that’s just been left at the shelter by the people it trusted, and I want to kill whoever did this to her. I want to take her in my arms and hold her close. Keep the world out. Protect her with my life, if that’s what it takes.
Am I being dramatic? Yes.
Do I regret the thoughts? Absolutely not.
And for the first time in years, I don’t think before I act. I don’t consider the consequences or argue with myself about whether it’s a good idea or bad. I don’t go through the possible dangers of making myself vulnerable or showing my feelings to someone who might hurt me.
I just move.
I reach for her and bring her to my body, fitting her snugly against me in the way I can only do with her, her head right under my chin and my arms wrapped around her shoulders. I don’t know if she’ll hug me back, and I don’t care, but when her arms wind around my waist and she turns her face into my chest, I nearly come undone with relief and the expansion happening inside my chest. I’m a live wire that’s found a way to ground itself, a broken heart that’s just discovered safety. A wild animal who’s feeling affection for the first time.
