All the way home, Lily felt as if someone had lit a slow-burning fuse inside her. Even after they finished the rest of their errands and the Warden took her to Marco’s for a large pepperoni pizza, she remained jittery. All she could think about was the selfie she’d sent. Had Bryan gotten it yet? Did he like it? Or was he laughing at her, showing her nakedness to all his friends?
They pulled up to the camp just after dark. Lily unlocked the gate and opened it wide enough to allow the truck to pass through. Then she re-locked it and rode standing up in the back of the truck as they jounced along the rutted, mile-long road to the cabin. Spreading her arms wide, she pretended she was in Hawaii, surfing.
After the Warden parked, she helped carry their supplies into the kitchen. Canned tomatoes, orange juice, two more boxes of tampons. She almost laughed—the Warden’s notion of a menstrual period was something akin to a leg amputation. Already she had enough pads and tampons to last her into her twenties. Thank God Alenna’s mom had showed her how to use them. She cringed at the thought of a female anatomy chat with the Warden.
“You okay?” He broke the silence that had stretched between them since they left Murphy.
“Fine.”
“Want to play a game of Scrabble?”
“No.” With a heavy sigh, she went to her room and closed the door behind her. Jesus–how many games of Scrabble had she played in the past five years? She had no idea—just that they’d worn out two dictionaries and she had a ready arsenal of words like quidnunc and zooty. Once she got away from the Warden, she would never play the stupid game again.
She flopped down on her bed and checked her phone, hoping some miracle had occurred and she had enough bars to reach cyberspace. But the thing was useless as ever, the eighty million trees that surrounded them smothering the signal. She would have to wait until tomorrow, when she could scurry up the ridge behind the cabin. Sometimes, if the internet gods smiled, she could get a signal there.
She turned on her light, grabbed a book from the pile by her bed. Between Shades of Gray. She started reading. It was unlike Fifty Shades of Grey, which she and Alenna had read by flashlight at a sleepover. This story was about a Lithuanian girl, shipped to a Gulag by the Russians. She turned the pages quickly, caught up in the story, thinking how like this girl she was. They’d both been taken from their homes, forced to live lives they didn’t want. But the girl in the book loved her mother and wanted desperately to reconnect with her father. Her own mother Ruth was dead, killed by the bitch Mary Crow. Though the Warden had told her a bullshit story about her mother having some kind of breakdown and pulling a gun on Mary, her Grandpa Moon had told her what really happened—that Mary Crow had grabbed that gun and shot her mother, just so she could get her father back. Once she heard that, her love for Mary had soured into hate. Nothing had changed her opinion since.
A noise outside caught her attention. She looked out the window to see two raccoons picking at the lock on the smokehouse door. She banged on the window. They turned and scurried away, hunchbacked and galloping.
The spell of the book was broken then, and her thoughts flew back to Bryan. Again she checked her phone; again she got nothing. Sighing, she looked at the picture he’d sent. He was standing beside a lawn mower, his blonde hair long, his grin slightly crooked. He looked confident, assured. A boy who could handle anything, from catching a pass to mowing forty acres.
She expanded the picture and traced his arms, wondering how tightly those muscles would hold her, how his lips would feel on her skin. Eating at the Y, Alenna had told her, was when boys kissed you there, between your legs. “It’s awesome,” Alenna reported with great authority.
“Has Noel done that to you?” asked Lily.
“Three times,” Alenna said proudly. “In the parking lot behind the skating rink. I nearly died it felt so good.”
She touched herself, wondering how different a tongue might feel than a finger. Softer, certainly. Warmer, too. Quickly, she pulled her finger away and rose from the bed. What a freak she was! Fifteen and kissed only once, by Marc Freneau, who stuck his thick, slimy tongue halfway down her throat, just before the Warden caught them and scared Marc so bad he ran all the way home. All her friends in Maine had been kissed many times, now. And by many different boyfriends. They were in love, having sex, probably planning weddings. All she’d done was traipse after the Warden like a pet on a leash.
Angry tears came to her eyes—she felt as if her life was some bright stream that was flowing past her, sweeping Alenna and Bryan and everything she loved away. She went to her dresser and pulled a red wool sweater from a drawer. Maybe she would walk to the lake. Or hike to the ridge, on the outside chance she could link to the internet there. All she knew was that if she stayed in this cabin a minute longer she would scream.
She laced up her boots and put her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. When she emerged from her room, she found the Warden in the kitchen, washing sweet potatoes for supper.
“I need to go out,” she announced flatly.
“Now?” He looked up from the sink, warming up his parental NO.
She played the trump card that worked every time. “I’ve got cramps. I sat in the truck most of the day. I need to get some exercise.”
“Oh.” He dried off the potatoes, his resistance evaporating. She knew he regarded menstruation as a mysterious land of hidden dangers; never did he cross the border or question the guards.
“I’m just going to the top of the ridge. I’ll be back in time for supper.”
He glanced at his watch, then handed her his knife. “Take Ribtickler. I saw coyotes up there last week.”
They both knew most coyotes would slink away from humans, but she took the knife just the same. If it shut him up, who cared?
His “be careful” followed her as she slammed the front door behind her and stepped into the January night. She hurried around the cabin, sliding on a frozen puddle. Up into the woods she went, the slush from old snow crunchy beneath her feet. She came up here a lot, storming out of the cabin whenever the Warden pissed her off. The trail was steep but apparently smelled of humans. She’d never seen anything bigger than a possum up here.
With Ribtickler digging into the small of her back, she ran. Once something scuttled away from her in the brushes, but beyond that, only the woods stretched, stark and silent, into the night. And miles away, west of the Appalachians, was a boy in Kentucky who maybe by now had seen her mostly topless.
“Wonder if he’s already written me,” she said, starting to hurry. “Wonder if I’ve got a message waiting, right now.”
Twenty minutes later, sweating and breathless, she reached the top of the ridge. Fifty feet from the trail was a broad stump of an oak tree felled by lightning. She hurried to stand in the middle of the stump and looked up. The moon had risen, a white orb over the distant mountains, surrounded by a halo of ice crystals.
“Ring around the moon, snow coming soon,” she whispered, repeating one of the Warden’s dopey weather maxims. God, what would she do if Bryan couldn’t get up here? What would she do if stupid snow ruined her plans?
“Just see if he’s even sent you a text,” she told herself. “He may not think you’re worth coming to see.”
She pulled her phone from her back pocket and stared at the screen. She was almost too scared to check her messages. What if he gave her some lame excuse? Said his uncle bailed on the trip, or he’d gotten back together with an old girlfriend? Or worse, said nothing at all?
“Come on,” she whispered. “Don’t be such a chicken.”
She turned on the phone. With another silent prayer to her dead mother, she closed her eyes and lifted the phone to the sky. For an agonizing minute she heard nothing, then amazingly, she heard the DING of a message alert. For once, the internet was working up here! With trembling hands, she lowered the phone and looked at the screen. She had one message, from tracksterBryan.
Her heart beating wildly, she clicked on the message. She saw first a line of heart emojis, then the text–U R BEAUTIFUL. ILY. CU in 2 Days.
A wave of utter joy engulfed her. Embracing the phone, she gazed up at the ring-girded moon. For the first time, on this night, at this moment, a boy had wanted her. Whatever else might happen to her, she would remember this moment forever.