And for some reason, as I think about the cards in hand, I remember…
The way I taught Asshole how to play. Tells. Antes. Flipping the rivers.
“You’re just a baby.”
“I’m not a baby!”
“Here, baby girl,” he says with a smirk, standing a good two feet above me. I hate that I’m so short next to him. “I made you this.”
“Trash? You made me trash?”
He doesn’t acknowledge me as he puts the threaded necklace over my head. “Bottlecap art. One of a kind.” In that casual wayhe has, where I never know if he’s serious or not, he shrugs. “Like you.”
I glance down at it. “It says AIC, your initials.”
“Yeah, well, I made it in my crafts class.”
Something tingles inside, and I have no idea what it means.
But I really, really like it.
His shoulder taps mine as he gazes out at the shimmering lake. We’re not supposed to be here. Not at this time of night, but after escaping my last solitary, Aiden was here. Right at midnight. Waiting with a loaf of bread, a package of bologna, and a box of Sweet Tarts “For the sweets.”
“I’ll write about it in my stupid journal,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady when everything in me is shaking. Like I just became human. Is this what it’s like to feel good?
He huffs. “They still make you girls keep it?”
“Yeah. But they don’t give it to me in the closet.” And I’ll never let the elders know how much I actually want that damn thing in my grasp. My only friend. The one way I can survive these summers. Writing down the memories so I never forget.
Do I document every breath he takes like I’m observing a religious miracle? Of course.
But he can never know.
“Didyou play cards with your cabin while I was gone?”
Using his fingers, he pinches his plump bottom lip and nods at the dark horizon. “Yeah. But it’s not the same as winning against you.”
“Ha! Right. You lose, like, half the time…”
The lightness of the moment suddenly fractures.
“I beat up Joey Kincaid.”
My breath stutters, and I stare at the side of his face. Aiden was in for the same reasons as me. We were the “violent” kids. “Because you lost at poker to him?” I ask with a quirk to my mouth.
His Adam’s apple bobs before he answers with a creak in histhroat. “Because he threatened to take something that’s mine.” Eyes dipping down, he tells me from a side-long stare, “He won’t say shit to the counselors.”
He goes still, quiet for a long minute, thinking something I don’t want to name. Because if I focus on it for too long, I’ll break.
“Two days for you this time…” he murmurs, the sound carried off on the summer breeze.
Chest aching, I stuff another soft, stale slice into my mouth. “Two days.”
The air intensifies when he turns to me, jaw clenched, and eyes almost white in the moonlight. “If they stick you in again, I’m tearing down the door and getting you out.” He says it with such conviction, I almost believe him. “You hear me, Ashlyn?”
If my heart weren’t beating so hard, I think I could respond. Instead, I can only nod.
Then lean against his hard body, letting myself finally get a moment of peace. Of comfort. A tiny hint that the skin on my back isn’t searing in pain.