chapter four

There are more than a few rumors going around about Del Sugar. There’s the rumor that he’s some kind of genius, and that Stonybrook is the only school in the country with any hope of giving him a good education. There’s the rumor that he was a juvenile delinquent when his parents adopted him, and that after only a few days of his being their real son, they were too scared of him to keep him at home. Someone—Beth Slapinski, who’s in my civics class—heard that when he was at his old school, he dented someone’s skull with a baseball bat just for talking to his girlfriend. Supposedly Del didn’t kill the guy—he just hurt him badly enough to get kicked out.

I’m not sure how much I believe any of the rumors. If any of them were true, aside from the one about Del being a genius, my dad would have given me some inkling of it. Besides, my dad wouldn’t let someone in if they’d done some of the things that Del is supposed to be responsible for.

But it’s true that he’s gorgeous, with his mussed blond hair and tall, thin build … and that tattoo. Where does a seventeen-year-old get a tattoo?

All the girls want him. My roommates, my friends—even me. How can we not? He always seems bored and disinterested. He doesn’t talk very much. But there’s no question that he’s smart as can be: he’s in math and chemistry with Stephanie, and she says he barely stays awake in class, but all of his test scores are 100 percent. With, like, zero effort.

“I got to be his partner today,” she tells me as we’re walking back from school together.

“Really? Did he pick you?”

“Well … no. We were assigned.”

“Oh. Did he talk to you?”

“Kind of. We talked about chemistry, mostly. Emily, he’s brilliant. He barely had to do the experiment, and he figured out most of the calculations in his head. And he told me that the four of us” (she means our quad) “should sit with him at dinner tonight.” Stephanie is almost shaking with excitement. She hops up and down on the balls of her toes in a gesture that’s reminiscent of Grace. “Emily, I think I’m gonna go for him. I think I like him.” When I don’t say anything, she adds, “I’m pretty sure he likes me, too.”

“Really?” I feel a twinge of something I don’t quite recognize at first—then I realize it’s annoyance. “Are you sure he wasn’t just being nice?”

She shakes her head. “There was more to it than that. He seemed interested in everything I had to say.” She pretends to shiver. “He’s so smart, I can’t stand it. It’s amazing.”

“And then they sent me away?” Renee raises a single eyebrow. “He’s, like, a mystery. Plus he’s sexy.” But then she shrugs. “Lots of guys are sexy, though. Big deal.”

I don’t know what I’m doing in here, I really don’t. It’s just before dinnertime. Franny is asleep, taking her usual after-school nap. Grace is at cross-country practice. Renee and I are part of only a handful of students who don’t play a fall sport. It was actually my dad’s idea; he prefers that I stay focused on studying, even though it never seems to do me any good. As a joke, my roommates call me a bookworm. But I’m naturally skinny, and lord knows Renee always looks ready to strut down a runway … so what would be the point in exercising? Better to just enjoy being young, I figure. Besides, it’s not like there’s any sport that I’m particularly good at. All I have is singing, and I can do that all by myself, anytime I need to get away. I just close my eyes, open my mouth … and forget about the rest of the world.

I’m still thinking about Ethan’s offer to sing in his band. I have to admit, there’s a part of me that’s genuinely intrigued by the idea. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and would be an exciting change from the day-to-day routine that I’ve gotten so used to over the years. Besides, the thought of spending more time with Ethan isn’t exactly unappealing.

But when I told Stephanie about it, she only rolled her eyes. “Ethan and that stupid band,” she said. “Emily, you can’t. He’s got too much going on as it is, between school and baseball and being a prefect—not to mention all of the crap that’s going on with our parents. You can’t drag him into a band.”

“But he asked me,” I said. “I’m not dragging him into anything. If I don’t do it, he’ll just find someone else, won’t he?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but you shouldn’t encourage him.” And she smirked at me. “Besides, you’re too shy to do something like that. You’d die onstage.”

After that, she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Maybe she’s right; I am shy. Maybe I’d just end up making a fool of myself. Still, I can’t stop thinking about Ethan’s words a few nights earlier: I don’t know if I want to do it without you. Why not without me? What does he see in me that I can’t see in myself?

Right now, though, I’m in Renee’s room, talking about Del and not much else. Over the past week, Renee and I have had brief conversations here and there. I can’t help it; since our first real talk, I’ve been fascinated by her. And it turns out she’s easy to talk to. At least, most of the time. Right now, Hillary is lying on her own bed—she doesn’t play a sport, either—propped up on one arm, glaring at both of us. The duct tape still runs down the center of the room. Renee’s half is still a mess. I don’t remember being in her room much when Madeline was here, but she must have kept things nicer; Madeline was a neat freak.

Throughout our conversation, I’ve been tempted to suggest that we go to my room and leave poor Hillary, who’s obviously annoyed by us, alone. But it is kind of thrilling to know how much we’re irritating her, to see that Renee obviously doesn’t care. Besides, even though she’s pretending to be agitated, it’s obvious that Hillary is just as curious about Del as everyone else.

Renee shrugs. “Well, he’s clearly got some secrets, but who doesn’t? I’m not impressed.”

Hillary makes a disgusted noise.

“I’m not,” she says. “There are plenty of geniuses here, and there are plenty of kids whose lives are more screwed up than Del Sugar’s, I’m certain of it. Besides, his parents sent him away after they adopted him—but he lived with them for three years before then. So they must love him and everything. I mean, they adopted him, and then they sent him to boarding school. So what? Lots of kids go to boarding school.” She shakes her head to emphasize the point. “Practically everyone I know goes to boarding school.” And she starts taking a mental count on her fingers.

I pause, thinking about it. “I guess you’re right. I mean … everyone I know goes to boarding school.”

Hillary snorts again. “You live at a boarding school, Emily. You grew up here. Of course everyone you know goes to boarding school. God, naive much?”

Renee gives Hillary a stony look, which is enough to give me the confidence to ignore her remarks. “So you don’t think I should bother sitting with him?” I ask, a tad disappointed. I want Renee to like me so badly. I’m not sure why. But if she thinks Del is no big deal, then I suppose he’s not.

“No,” she says. She grins. “Sit with me.”

So I do. That night, I see Stephanie trying to make eager conversation with Del throughout the whole meal. The school intern, Mr. Henry, is supervising their table halfheartedly (he’s only twenty-two and just out of Harvard) while Grace and Franny and Stephanie giggle and fuss over Del. Oddly enough, despite the earlier enthusiasm that Steph said he showed when inviting her to dinner, he seems almost bored.

But after dinner, Steph catches me walking back to the dorm and squeals, “He’s going to come over!”

“What?” I look around for him. “Now?”

“No. He just said sometime. He was asking when we were all around, and he said he wanted to stop by and visit us sometime soon. Emily, I really think he likes me. Oh my God. I could die.”

I’m happy for her; really, I am. But something just doesn’t feel … right. Steph is beautiful and popular. And don’t get me wrong—she’s my best friend. But she has an attitude to her that not everyone likes; a lot of people, people who don’t know her like I do, are more afraid of her than anything else. She likes to get what she wants, when she wants it, and she doesn’t like it at all when things don’t go her way. And I can’t help but feel like, just from our very brief conversation, I kind of know Del. He didn’t strike me as the type of guy who would go after someone so … well, someone like Stephanie. He seems like the kind of guy who would see right through her pushiness, and maybe even find it unattractive. Call it a hunch; I don’t know how I know. I just can’t picture the two of them together.

The following morning, Grace is at a cross-country meet; Franny and Stephanie sleep through breakfast, so I go up alone. I’m walking back to the dorm when I feel a cool hand on my shoulder. It’s Del. He reaches out and touches me—just like that, like it’s no big deal at all.

“It’s the Columbo expert,” he says. He’s supposed to wear long sleeves all the time to hide his tattoo, but as far as I can tell, he’s completely disregarded the rule. I can see his veins beneath the flesh of the apple. I can see the pain, so bright red and deep that I can almost feel it myself.

I try to pretend that I’m not interested in talking to him, for Stephanie’s sake. But he has these blue eyes that look like a thousand ice crystals, a crooked smile, and slightly imperfect teeth—he’s gorgeous in a fully human, vulnerable way, and there’s something just slightly needy about him.

Besides, everyone is still so curious about his history. Nobody knows who his real parents are, or where he came from; nobody has the nerve to just ask him. Not even me.

“Del,” I say. Then, trying to be … I don’t know, aloof, maybe even a little rude, I ask, “What’s that short for? Delbert?”

He winces, almost imperceptibly, for just a split second, before the coolness returns to his expression. “No. It’s just Del.”

“Your mom gave you that name?”

“I told you, I’m adopted.” It’s not exactly an answer.

It’s still unbelievably warm, so I’m walking back from breakfast in Stonybrook Academy athletic shorts (borrowed from Grace) and a T-shirt I bought in town that reads: STONYBROOK! 500 RICH PEOPLE CAN’T BE WRONG! My dad rolls his eyes every time I wear it, and has begged me to get rid of it more than once. He’s real touchy about the perception of elitism at Stonybrook—even though it’s so blatantly elitist.

Del’s gaze lingers at my chest, longer than it takes to read the writing. Then he looks me in the eye. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Emily?”

Say my name again. In that moment, I realize it’s all I want in the world.

I shake my head. “No. Do you?”

He nods. “I have a sister. She’s older, but we’re less than a year apart. Her name is Melody.”

“Oh? And where’s Melody?”

We’re almost to his dorm. “I don’t know,” he says. “I got adopted. I’m not certain, but I think she’s still in a foster home somewhere. She’ll be there until she’s eighteen, and then … who knows if I’ll ever find her again?” His tone is bitter. He licks his lips, which appear soft and full and please say my name again. Just once.

“Do you want to go for a walk or something?” he asks.

“What? You mean right now?”

“Why not right now?”

“Um … lots of reasons. Where would we go? We can’t leave campus.”

“I don’t know. We can just talk. Take a little walk around. There are places.”

I consider. It isn’t like I have a boyfriend or anything. And it isn’t like he and Stephanie are dating. Maybe he wants to talk about her. Or maybe he just wants to talk. It’s only a walk, I think. That’s harmless enough. “Okay,” I say. “But not right now.”

“What’s the matter? You have somewhere else to be?”

We stop at his dorm. We’re standing in front of one of the windows to the common room. Looking inside, I can see that Ethan has his drums set up. Max Franklin, who plays guitar, is with him. When Ethan notices me looking at them, he raises his hand in a “come here” gesture.

“What does he want?” Del asks.

I’m suddenly embarrassed. Just the thought of singing for them, of being the center of attention, is enough to make me feel mortified. “Nothing,” I say. “He’s goofing around.”

Ethan tosses a drumstick at the window. I flinch as it hits the glass.

I stare at the sidewalk. Last year, they replaced a few squares of concrete in front of Winchester. While the cement was still wet, almost everybody who walked by took the opportunity to write their initials in it. There’s an “E.P.” for Ethan Prince, “S.M.” for Sam Marshall, “W.H.” for Winston Howard, and—in a corner by itself—“M.F. LOVES H.S.” for “Max Franklin loves Hillary Swisher.” There’s an “A.S.” (Amanda Stream), “S.P.” (Stephanie Prince), and “M.M.P.” (Madeline Moon-Park). There are a bunch of other initials, too, from kids in different grades.

Del follows my gaze. “Where are yours?” he asks.

“They’re not there.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

Ethan throws his other drumstick in our direction. “Emily!” he calls. “Get in here and sing!”

“I didn’t want to get in trouble,” I say to Del.

“You thought you’d get into trouble for writing your initials?”

“Emily!” Ethan shouts again. “Get in here and sing!”

“Yes.” I can feel blood rushing to my face.

“It doesn’t look like anyone else was afraid.”

“Well, I was.”

“ …”

“ …”

Then he says, “It seems like they really want you to go in there and sing.”

“I’m not going.” I look up at Ethan, who is staring expectantly at me through the window. I shake my head.

“Why not?” he shouts. He sticks out his bottom lip in a pout.

“Someone ought to shut them up,” Del says. “They woke me up at nine thirty with that noise.”

I look at him. “It’s not ‘noise.’ They’re good.”

“Then why don’t you want to sing for them?”

“Because … I’m shy.”

When Del smiles at me, the corners of his eyes crinkle like tissue paper. His skin is so smooth that it almost seems translucent. “You’re pretty, too,” he says.

The air feels hotter all of a sudden. Del reaches out with his tattooed arm and tucks a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “What are you doing right now? Why can’t we go somewhere and talk?”

“I told you, I can’t. I’m supposed to study with my roommate.” And it’s true; Franny is going to help me with precalc.

“All right. What time, then?”

Inside, Ethan and Max begin to play “In My Life” by The Beatles. Ethan is singing. He’s got a fantastic voice; I don’t know why they even want me.

I stare at the sidewalk again, focusing on the “M.M.P.” for Madeline Moon-Park. Beside her initials, she’d drawn a crescent moon and three tiny stars. She might be gone, but a part of her is here forever, in stone. “Four o’clock,” I tell him.

I can hear him smiling. “Okay. I’ll come over and get you.”

“No,” I say quickly. I don’t want Steph to see me with him. “I’ll come here.”

He nods. He begins to back away, toward the double doors to Winchester. “All right, Emily. I’ll be waiting.”

I need to tell someone what’s happening, and I obviously can’t tell any of my roommates, so I stop in Renee’s room on my way back from breakfast to tell her what’s going on.

She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her mirror, working her wet hair into two long braids. “He likes you,” she tells me. “Ooh la la.”

“Stephanie thinks he likes her,” I say. I’m sitting at Renee’s desk. Her notes for English lit are scattered all over the surface. She has sloppy handwriting. Big surprise.

“He obviously does not like Stephanie,” Renee says.

I frown. “But she’s beautiful.”

“So? She has the body of a game show hostess and the personality of a Komodo dragon.” Renee finishes her braids and takes a long moment to stare at her reflection. Then she turns around to look at me. “This is very exciting, Emily. You should be happy. Don’t worry about Stephanie.”

When I don’t respond, she adds, “I’m a little bit jealous, you know. Del is the only boy around here who’s actually interesting.”

From her place on the bed, Hillary rolls her eyes and speaks up. “Renee. Didn’t you go out with Mark Foster last summer?”

“That’s right, you did!” I say. Mark Foster is a child star. Over the summer, I saw dozens of photos of him and Renee, hand in hand as they exited clubs together late at night.

Renee shrugs. “Mark Foster is a boring snob. This is a real person with a history and a personality. Do you know how dull people in show business are? They’re all completely self-absorbed.”

Hillary yawns. “Self-absorbed, I can see. Dull, I’m not so sure about.”

“Don’t you have someplace to be?” They take what feels like a full minute just to glare at each other. But beneath the surface of their expressions, I can sense the slightest hint of a smile in both of them.

“Can I just start calling you Madeline?” Renee asks. Her smile grows a bit wider. She breathes a wistful sigh. “Could you just, like, act exactly the same and maybe dye your hair black?”

Even Hillary loved Madeline. “We should find out where she went, Renee,” she says. “I’m sure we could track her down on Google.”

“You think I haven’t tried that?” Renee, standing beside me, tugs me out of my chair and toward her bed. “I’ve looked. There’s nothing.” To me, she says, “Sit down, Emily. Let me braid your hair.”

“Well, there has to be some way to find a phone number for her, at least,” Hillary says. “She’s probably at another school, right?”

“Obviously she’s at another school,” I say. “Where else would she be? Come on, let’s think about it. I want to help.”

“Keep looking,” Hillary tells Renee. “You’ll find something. And, Emily, you weren’t even great friends with her. Aside from getting some private information from your dad, what help can you possibly be?”

I frown at Hillary. But when I think about it, I realize that she’s right. I didn’t know Madeline all that well. Since I’ve been going to school here, I’ve hung out almost exclusively with Steph, Franny, and Grace. I wish I’d taken the time to get to know Madeline better. Now that she’s gone, I’ll never have the chance.

There’s one thing I remember, though. “You know what’s weird?” I ask. I try to keep my head steady as Renee tugs at my hair with a brush.

Hillary sits up. She goes to her own mirror on her closet door and begins to dab foundation over a faint hickey on her neck. “What?”

“I never met her parents. In all the time she was going here, never once did I see Madeline’s parents. Did either of you? Renee, you were her roommate—did you ever meet her mom or dad?”

Renee is quiet, thinking. “Umm … no,” she says, “I don’t think I ever did.”

“Well, that’s kind of strange.” Hillary peers into the mirror, squinting as she blends the foundation. “I mean, lots of parents aren’t around much—but to never have seen them? Weird.”

I feel goose bumps on the back of my neck as Renee winds my hair into two long braids. “That’s enough about Madeline,” she says. “We shouldn’t talk about her like this.”

“Fine. But you spoil everything fun, you know?” Hillary is at the door. “I’m going to see Max. I’ll be back later.”

“Take your time,” Renee says.

“Put my hairbrush back where it belongs,” Hillary tells her.

I glance down at the bed, where the brush is sitting beside me. “Hillary” is written in permanent marker on the handle.

“Why are you using her brush?” I ask, once Renee and I are alone.

“No reason. I just don’t have one of my own.” Renee stands up to look at me. “You look great.” She smiles. “You look ready for your date.”

I feel my face growing warm. “It’s not a date. We’re just going for a walk.”

“Okay. Right.” She winks. “Come see me when you get back. Then you can tell me if it wasn’t a date.”

When I get to Winchester, Del isn’t in the common room; nobody is. Ethan’s drums are still set up, and for a moment I stand there looking at them, part of me wishing I had the nerve to sing with him.

“Emily.”

It’s Max. Hillary is standing beside him, her arm around his waist. “Are you looking for Del?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“He’s behind the building. He told me to send you back.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

Max gives me a suspicious grin. “Whatcha doing, Em?”

Hillary stands on her tiptoes and whispers something into his ear. He nods, listening. Then he says, with a knowing smirk, “Ohhh … I see how it is.”

“I’m not doing anything!” I almost shriek the words. “Hillary, what did you tell him?”

“What?” She looks at me innocently. “I didn’t tell him anything.”

“You’d better be a good girl, Emily,” Max says, tugging Hillary toward the door. “We wouldn’t want you doing anything to disappoint Daddy.”

When I find Del, he’s leaning up against the brick wall of his dorm, smoking a cigarette. I fan the air as I approach him, wrinkling my nose at the smell.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke,” I say. “It’s disgusting.”

To my surprise, he says, “Oh. Okay.” And he flicks the lit cigarette butt into the woods. He smiles. “Better?”

I’m impressed. Even my roommates won’t listen when I ask them not to smoke.

“I like your hair,” Del says, stepping closer to me. He leans forward and touches one of the braids lightly. “Neither of your parents has red hair, do they?”

“No.”

He looks at my face, into my eyes. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know.” It’s warm enough that Del is wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt. I stare at his tattoo.

“It’s a mystery, then?”

I’ve never thought of it that way. “I guess.”

“I see.” He nods toward the path at the edge of the woods. “Well? Are you ready?”

After a few moments of walking along the path, we meet up with a stone wall that surrounds campus. On the other side of the wall, there’s a stream. Without saying anything, Del takes me by the hand and helps me as we both climb over the rocks.

Being so close to the water gives me chills. It isn’t only the water in my dreams that scares me; it’s running water, still water, all water. Even if there’s no breeze, even if I’m standing in a hot shower in my own house, it chills part of me right down to my bones. I hate it. It terrifies me like nothing else—nothing except fire.

“Do you want to sit down?” Del asks.

I give the stream a hesitant look. It’s not just being near the water that makes me uncomfortable; it’s being alone with Del, who I barely know, and who I shouldn’t even be out here with. “I thought we were going for a walk.”

“We did.” He follows my gaze. “What’s the matter? You don’t like water?”

“Not really.”

“It’s just a stream, Emily.” He tugs me gently to the ground. “Relax. I won’t bite.”

We sit quietly for a few minutes, both of us staring at the water. Del leans back on his elbows and gazes at the clear sky. “I like it here, in Connecticut,” he says. “It’s nice being near the ocean.”

“Where does your family live?”

“Outside Boston.” He bites his lip. “If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t laugh?”

I nod. “Yes. I promise.”

“I had never been to a beach until a few years ago.”

“Really?” Even though I don’t like water, I’ve still been to the beach a million times with my family and my friends. Who hasn’t?

“Really,” he says. “Nobody ever took me when I was in foster homes.”

“Wow. That’s … too bad.”

He swallows. “That’s not all. I didn’t even learn to swim until I was fifteen. Nobody ever thought to teach me, not until my parents—I mean, the people who adopted me—found out I’d never had lessons.” He squints at the stream. “My adoptive dad took me to a swimming pool one Saturday and taught me how. You should have seen me in the water with all those kids. There were six-year-olds swimming circles around me.” He continues to stare at the sky. “I looked ridiculous. It was pretty awful.”

The breeze is chilly. I pull my knees against my chest, trying not to shiver. My braids are so long that I can feel them resting halfway down my back. For a second, I remember the rumor that’s going around about him taking a baseball bat to someone at his last school. I can’t imagine Del hurting anyone.

“So … you’re adopted,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“What are your parents like? I mean, your adoptive parents?”

“My father works for the government. You know, top secret kind of stuff.” Del seems proud of the fact. “And his wife—my mom—she’s a dermatologist.”

“Why did they send you here right away?”

He shrugs. “It’s not that interesting. I lived with them for something close to three years, and I went to Howard Academy the whole time. Boarding school’s nothing new.”

“But how did you even get in here? We never take new students like this.”

He smiles. The expression goes right to my gut and makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the best kind of way. For just a moment, the coolness of the stream vanishes, and I’m warm all over. Say my name say my name say my name. “You ought to know, Emily. Big checks can do big things.”

The explanation seems simple enough. I nod. “Right. I guess they can.”

“And what about you? You’ve always gone to school here?”

“Yes. My dad is the headmaster, so I started in seventh grade. It’s like a family.” I swallow. “You’ll like it here.”

He stares at me. “I already do.”

I have never even kissed a boy. Del is a good six inches taller than me, so as he leans in, he seems much older. I have no doubt he’s more experienced than I am. I feel almost dizzy as he gets closer, a sense of suffocation surrounding me. He smells like cigarette smoke and kerosene and sweat.

“Del? Can I ask you something?”

He bites the edge of his thumbnail. “Sure.”

“Why did you leave your last school?”

He shakes his head ever so slightly. “It’s not important.”

I hesitate. I wonder if he knows about all the rumors going around. “Well, then, what was it? Did you get kicked out?”

“No.” He tilts his head downward. That smell—it’s both delicious and gross. But his mouth is so beautiful, his lips full and teeth slightly crooked, so I can tell he’s never had braces. “Can I tell you something?”

I don’t know what I’m doing out here with him. I feel like a little kid. “Sure.”

“I like you, Emily.”

I feel numb. “Del,” I inform him, “you like Stephanie.”

“Do I, now?” He grins.

“Yes. Yes, you do.”

“Stephanie’s a pretty girl.” He considers. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

“Right,” I say. “She’s popular, too. And rich.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Good for Stephanie.” He’s so close to me now that our foreheads are touching. “But I like you.”

I pull away. He reaches out and holds on to my arm. “You don’t know me at all,” I say. My voice is breathy. “And I don’t know anything about you.”

“You know about my family. You know I didn’t learn to swim until I was fifteen.”

“That’s not anything. Tell me something else.” I pause. “Where’d you get your tattoo?”

He shakes his head. “Not important.”

“You’re seventeen. You shouldn’t have one of those yet.”

“Emily, shhh.” He tugs on my arm. “Come here. I want to kiss you.”

For a second, I freeze. He doesn’t like Stephanie. He likes me. We’re alone in the woods. He’s holding on to me. There is nowhere else to go.

He glances down at the tattoo. “If I tell you where I got it, will you kiss me?”

“No. We should go back.”

But he ignores me. “A few years ago, my sister and I were in the same foster home. It was the last time I saw her. Her name is Melody.”

“You told me her name already.”

“It wasn’t a good place. Sometimes people … they take in kids just for the money, you know?”

I giggle. “Kind of like here?”

“No,” he says, serious. “Not like here. This place is different.” He licks his lips. “Anyway, my sister hurt herself. She felt like … I don’t know, like damaged goods, I guess. So we had this neighbor who owned a tattoo parlor, and we convinced him to give her a tattoo on her wrist. We convinced him to give one to both of us.”

It occurs to me that what he’s describing is exactly what Stephanie wants to get with Ethan—matching tattoos. Funny, though—the way Del’s telling the story makes it sound interesting and intimate, almost beautiful. Not gross.

“She was hurting herself?” I ask. “What do you mean? Like, she cut her wrists?”

Del nods. “Something like that.”

I can’t even believe what he’s saying. “And you were fourteen when you got the tattoo?”

“Yes. I’ve been in foster homes my whole life. My parents now are really good people, though. I got lucky.” He looks at the apple. “My adoptive mom wants to help me get this removed. But I’ll never let them take it.”

“Why not?”

He inches his face closer to mine. “My sister. I don’t know when I’ll see her again. I don’t know where she is. The tattoos are the only thing we have that keeps us connected, you know?”

I nod, but I don’t know. I just know that, as scared as I am, I don’t want to move; I could stay here all afternoon with his breath on my face. It’s like a slow asphyxiation that feels better than anything I’ve ever known

“Why an apple? Why the bite?” I ask, my voice lowered to a whisper. I’m so sorry, Steph.

He slides both of his hands to the back of my neck. “Because of sin,” he says. Then he kisses me. His mouth feels almost hot. I hear the stream, the sound of water rushing past me, but I don’t feel cold anymore. I don’t feel scared anymore, either. Del nudges me back against the ground until he’s resting above me, his hands moving from my neck to my hair to my body.

I feel safe. I feel warm and protected, unafraid of the water that’s so nearby. I feel as if, all these years, I’ve just been waiting for him to show up.

Del pulls away for a moment. “Emily,” he asks, “what’s your middle name?”

I smile. “Alice.”

“Emily Alice Meckler.” He traces my lips with his fingertip. “Tell me something else about yourself.”

“I like to sing.”

“Oh yeah? Are you good at it?”

“Yes.” I nod. “Now you tell me something. What’s your middle name?”

He kisses me again, for a long time. I almost think he’s forgotten about the question. Then he pulls back and says, “I don’t know my middle name.”

“What do you mean?” Our lips are touching as we speak.

“I mean I don’t know. I don’t even know if I have one.” There is a part of him that is so unbelievably sad.

I want to stay here with him all afternoon, to make him feel safe and happy. I’ve never felt this way with anyone until now.

“I shouldn’t be out here with you,” I say.

He laughs. “Too late.”

“People will talk about us.” I think of Max and Hillary earlier in Winchester. “They already are.”

“Oh yeah? What will they say?” And he takes his fingertip and brushes it over my eyelids so that they fall closed.

“They’ll say we’re going to get into trouble.” I can feel his face close to mine, his breath against my cheek. “Are we?”

“Yes,” he tells me. “That’s the plan.”