“What is this, Glory?” His voice was strange. Taut and abstracted. The question sounded less like a question than a warning.
“Um... It... it looks like an old forty-five record.” Her voice a little gravelly.
He took another step toward her. “But whatisit?”
She took a step backward.
Putting the tree behind her. Which might have been unwise. Because that gave her nowhere else to go. And it might have been their castle and their fort when they were younger, but it sure wasn’t going to help her now.
“It’s a record. Eli, I’m not sure what you—”
“What. Does it. Mean?” He laid those words down like bricks. The tone suggested she had until the count of three to tell him.
She’d only half understood before why she’d told Bethany to buy him that record. She had a hunch that it would be like a little grenade thrown into their date. That it would tear his walls down.
But she was suddenly scared to death of what she’d done. Because she hadn’t considered that by tearing his walls down, hers would come down, too, and it was going to hurt like a motherfucker, and now she was panicking.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Eli. It’s a rec—”
And the words rushed out of him.
“My seventeenth birthday. You were wearing a denim skirt and a white top with little flowers on it, and you’d made a barrette out of three old guitar picks and you’d clipped it right here.” He pointed to his temple. “The sun was just going down, and your hair was lit from behind, and it almost looked like you were wearing a sort of... of... crown of coals.”
His words were almost breathless, shaped in ache and fury. Like he’d held them in forever.
She was stunned. “Eli...”
“You sangthissong.” He held it up, accusingly, like it was something she’d stolen. “This song. ‘Hey Hey What Can I Do.’ In front of a bunch of kids who were older than you. You sang thehellout of my favorite song in the world. And it was the funniest, most beautiful, bravest, mostbadassthing and it was almost more than I could do to listen to it, because I wanted to, like,wearthat song. I stood there thinking... does she know? Does she know she’s turning her real self inside out for the world to see? Does she know how amazing she is? I almost wanted to cover you up, because it was so raw and soyou, and I know how deep it goes when youfeelthings, Glory, and I never want anyone to hurt you, then or now. So I stood there thinking all of this. And it turned me inside out, too. I was almost...angry. Because back then, I liked to think I was tough and nothing could shake me, but it turns out your voice finds all those sore, scared places inside me and reminds me that I’m only human after all. That all I’ve done is hidden them, even from myself. But you managed to make even those things, the things that hurt, beautiful. And I...”
He stopped abruptly. His breath was coming in a raw rush now.
Her heart was jackhammering. She was awestruck. And thrilled. And terrified. Because she knew she was in the presence of a profound beginning or a bad ending. Maybe both.
“And then I...” he tried again.
He caught himself.
He didn’t seem to want to commit to finishing that sentence.
She was motionless.
A breeze whipped a strand of her hair across her face and she left it. She wanted those words, those beautiful, terrifying words, possibly the most words she’d ever heard him say in a row, maybe, to ring by themselves.
She’d set this in motion. And all at once she wasn’t certain she had the courage to see it through, even though she liked to think of herself as a badass.
“So stop lying, Glory. Just... stop it.” He sounded end-of-his-rope weary. His voice cracked and maddened. “I know you must have told Bethany to buy this for me when she asked for suggestions. I think youknowwhat this means to me. I think I know what it means to you. And I think I know why you did it. But I need you to tell me.”
Birds sang a lovely liquid melody as they stood there, feet apart, and she didn’t say a word.
They both just breathed. She wasn’t sure what to say. She was, in fact, afraid to tell him the truth. She wanted to say something lyrical, something mature.
Instead out came the thing that had tortured her.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“NO I DIDN’T SLEEP WITH HER.”
Her hair nearly blew back with the force of his emotion. He sounded both tortured and amused and blackly furious.