DILLON SPENDS THE NEXT FOUR DAYS AT HOME. It’s been nice having him there. We leave Opal behind while we take the pickup truck to scavenge more houses, and though we share a bedroom, there’s something better about being alone together. Really alone.
But I can’t stop thinking about the way he looked at me the day we took my mom to Ellen’s. He wasn’t wrong to judge me for being a brat, but I hate that he thinks I was being unreasonable. He must’ve been thinking about it, too, because as we glean the cupboards in one of the houses toward the back of the neighborhood, he pulls out a bag of sugar shut with a plastic clip.
“I’ll take this to Ellen tomorrow when I go back to work.”
“Dillon.”
He looks at me, sort of furtively and guiltily, like he feels bad for poking me, but not that bad. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” I shrug. My parents taught me it was important to own up to things you did wrong, even if you did them for the right reasons. To say you’re sorry when you are, and I am, if only because my reaction made him think less of me. “I know we owe her something, and if it’s sugar, that’s fine. It’s just that I don’t think she has our best interests at heart. That’s all.”
“She risks a lot to help people, you know. She risked a lot to help us.” He snags my wrist and holds it up, rubbing the red mark the orange bracelet’s left on my skin. “You know what would happen if she got caught?”
“The same thing that’s happening to people who try to leave the boundaries. Or just the ones who test positive. The same thing that’s happening to a lot of people.” It sounds harsher than I mean it to. “She tested people, Dillon. Who knows, she might’ve been one of the ones who ran tests on my mom.”
He doesn’t answer that, and drops my wrist. I can see he’s working up to tell me something, though, and I wait for him to spit it out. I busy myself opening drawers and pulling out broken pens and notepads and rubber bands, setting aside anything that looks like it might be useful.
“It’s just that … you’re hard, sometimes, Velvet.”
I don’t look at him, though his words sting. I keep my shoulders from hunching, pretending I’m not at all upset by what he said. I dig through someone else’s junk and say nothing.
“Most of the time, you’re strong and determined and you work hard, and I know it’s frustrating for you. Doing all this. And scary. But, sometimes, you’re hard, too.”
“And you don’t like it?”
“No,” Dillon says after what feels like a really long time. “I guess I don’t.”
I don’t turn. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You don’t have to say anything, I guess. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Why?” I cry, finally facing him. “Why would you tell me that? Does it serve a purpose? You want me to be sweet and soft and passive, or what?”
“No,” he says, but I cut him off.
“Because that’s ridiculous!”
I toss the pens with their missing caps and the broken stubs of pencils to the floor. I kick them, making them roll. I slam the drawer shut hard enough to splinter the cheap wood.
“If I’m hard, it’s because I have to be!” I shout.
Dillon reaches for me, but all I see is red, the edges of my vision blurring and wavering. I try to breathe, but the air’s so tight and close in this dark, stinking kitchen that reeks of mold and decay that all I can do is cough and choke. I swat away his hands, meaning only to keep him from hugging me, but the back of my hand catches him under the chin and sends him staggering back.
Silence.
Dillon touches his lip, which is swelling a little from where he bit it. His eyes are wide. He backs up from me when I move toward him.
“I didn’t mean to,” I tell him, but it doesn’t matter.
He leaves me there.
I don’t run out after him. I wait for the pickup truck to start up and drive away, and then I let myself loose in the kitchen until everything within reach is destroyed.