Page 11 of The Heart That Breaks
I draw in a long breath and blow it out again. I might have to live with it for now, but not forever.
And I won’t.
I won’t.
***
BY SOME MIRACLE, Lance heads to bed at nine o’clock that night. It could have been the six-pack he drank after supper. Even so, it would be unusual for that to have enough of an effect for him to miss his late night shows.
Mama goes to bed early too, so I gather up my blankets and alarm clock and crawl out my window long before I would normally have dared to.
I’ve just reached Henry’s house when I spot a shadow at the corner of the trailer. It scares me so bad I nearly jump out of my skin. Thinking it’s Lance, I start to run back to my room.
“Ann-Elizabeth?”
The voice turns my feet to concrete.Surely, I’m dreaming. It can’t be.
“Nathan?” I say, turning around slowly.
“Yeah,” he says, pushing a bike toward Henry and me. Henry barks a warning.
“Shh,” I say, rubbing Henry’s head in reassurance. “It’s okay.”
“Is he going to bite me once I get over there?” Nathan asks, clearly uncertain.
“Not unless I tell him to.”
“Will you not tell him to?”
I smile a little. “For now.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, adding, “Did you really ride all the way from your house?”
“It’s only ten miles,” he says. “So you know where I live?”
“Everybody knows where you live. It’s one of the biggest houses in the county.”
He puts his bike down, then walks over and reaches down to rub Henry’s head. Henry starts to wag his tail, looking up at Nathan with a big grin, his whole body wagging now, reminding me that the only person he ever sees is me.
“I repeat. What are you doing here?”
He shrugs a backpack off his shoulder. “I was hoping you could help me with our English homework.”
“You were not.”
“Yeah. I was.”
“You make straight A’s. You don’t need help.”
“That doesn’t mean I think it’s easy.”
“You think I’ve got something on you where English is concerned?”
“I do.”
“Then you came all this way for nothing. Besides, how did you know where I live?”
