Usually, I heard Beckett land after jumping over the barbed-wire fence that separated our two small farms on the edge of downtown Swift Rivers—or just Rivers, as the locals affectionately called it. But tonight, I’d missed the sound, too distracted by my parents’ argument and the mess of thoughts twisting through my head.
I had to look up—way up—to meet his eyes. Beckett had shot up nearly three inches over the winter, and the rest of him hadn’t quite caught up yet. He was downright skinny these days, despite the lean muscles he’d built from endless chores on his family’s goat farm and the long hours he put in at the Harrington Ranch, where his dad worked full time.
Beckett’s dark-brown hair was on the longer side, curling about his ears and around his neck. He was constantly pushing the floppy mass out of his eyes—deep, warm, chocolate eyes that rested under thick brows he’d gotten from his dad.
“Thought we were celebrating,” Beckett said. His voice had changed two years ago. Deep now, it sounded like a man’s voice, even when he still looked like a scraggily fourteen-year-old.
My body hadn’t started to change at all. When Chelsea had been twelve, like me, she’d already been wearing a bra and had started her period. My body looked like I was still eight. How was that fair? But then again, Chelsea would say it wasn’t fair that I hogged all our family’s money simply because my jaw stuck out too much.
Beckett studied me closely. And even though the sky had slid just beyond the hills, and the oak tree cast shadows over me, there was still enough light for him to see the glimmer of tears streaking down my face.
“Maise?” Worry coated his voice.
Beckett and Fallon were the only ones I didn’t mind calling me “Maise.” They said it softly, like it actually meant something good. Everyone else turned it into a joke. Once the kids in school found out it was the Native word for corn, they started calling me Corny the Deformed Corncob. And Chelsea calling me Cornlette hadn’t helped, no matter how sweetly she intended it.
“I have to go inside, Beckett.”
And with that handful of words, he got what I meant.
“Shit. The orthodontist wants you to wear the facemask for longer?”
Beckett liked cussing these days. It was as if being a few weeks away from graduating eighth grade and moving on to high school had suddenly made it essential that he become familiar with every curse word in existence.
“Yep,” I said with an extra pop on the P. “Another entire summer where I’ll be stuck indoors after seven p.m.”
“You don’t have to be stuck inside, Maisey.”
Technically, I didn’t. No one said I couldn’t leave the house with the facemask on. The hideous contraption, slowly shifting my jaw into a more “appropriate” position, didn’t require darkness and solitude, but I didn’t want anyone to see me in it.
I didn’t even want my family to see it.
After I put on the mask, I hid in my room, where I devoured the books Beckett had helped me master, until sleep found me.
Beckett rested his hands on my shoulders, and even at twelve, eventhough my hormones hadn’t really found me yet, I felt something deep inside me swoosh at his touch. It had been that way since the very first time we’d touched. From the moment I’d stuck my hand out to help him up after he’d fallen out of a tree and landed in our yard. It felt like…coming home after a long trip. Like…I’d found the place I truly belonged.
But tonight, the gentleness I always received from Beckett only made the tears flow harder.
“Don’t cry, Maise. Please don’t cry.” His voice was thick, choked with emotions that mirrored mine.
“I hate being me. I hate my jaw and my teeth and my parents fighting over the money I’m costing them.”
Beckett yanked me out of the swing and wrapped his arms around me. I was so short compared to him after his growth spurt that my nose ended up in his armpit. I didn’t care. He didn’t smell like the other stinky boys at school, who hadn’t figured out how to use deodorant yet. Beckett smelled like bonfire smoke and pine trees. Like some of my best childhood memories. Sometimes it felt like the only memories that really mattered were the ones made after he moved in next door six years ago.
“I refuse to stand by and let anyone, including you, hate on my Maisey-girl,” he growled.
And my sick little preteen heart swooped again. I loved it when Beckett called mehisMaisey-girl, even though I wasn’t really his.
He’d actually been “going out” with Chelsea’s frenemy, Delilah, most of the school year. But after his dad’s fiancée had broken up with Kurt and taken off for South America, Beckett had broken up with Delilah and said he was over dating, just like his dad.
Beckett tugged gently at my plain, long brown hair. I wished I could wear it in the fishtail braid Fallon had taught me, but when I pulled it back, my jaw and teeth were all anyone focused on. At least with my hair down, I could hide behind it.
My second alarm went off, and it made me want to cry even harder. I didn’t ever want to leave Beckett’s arms. But the reminder warned me I was dangerously close to not putting on the facemask in time for it to do its job. My orthodontist told me that every minute I was late was why I had to wear it for longer than they’d expected. Except, I’d rarely been late. I’d been diligent for four years. Four years… It felt like a lifetime already.
“We can still camp out in the treehouse and finishThe Hunger Gamestrilogy this summer. I don’t care about the facemask. You know I won’t laugh at you.”
“You haven’t ever seen me in it, Beckett. It’s so…” I shook my head. I couldn’t even explain it. With the front of it suctioned to my forehead, the contraption hanging down over my nose and mouth and hooking to my teeth, I looked like a robot gone wrong. A mistake not even fit for the Island of Misfit Toys. “It makes me even uglier.”
“You’renotugly.” He said it fiercely, as if he were swearing. Like he meant it. “When I met you, it was your green eyes I noticed first. They made you look like…an avenging angel or something.”