“Lena?” Nobody answered. My voice sounded strange, as if it wasn’t mine, echoing off the stone walls that surrounded the little grove. I grabbed the bush closest to me and ripped off a branch. Rosemary. Of course. And in the tree above my head, there it was: a strangely perfect, smooth, yellow lemon.
“It’s Ethan.” As the muffled sounds of sobbing grew, I knew I was coming closer.
“Go away, I told you.” She sounded like she had a cold; she had probably been crying since she left school.
“I know. I heard you.” It was true, and I couldn’t explain it. I stepped carefully around the wild rosemary, stumbling through the overgrown roots.
“Really?” She sounded interested, momentarily distracted.
“Really.” It was like the dreams. I could hear her voice, except she was here, crying in an overgrown garden in the middle of nowhere, instead of falling through my arms.
I parted a large tangle of branches. There she was, curled up in the tall grasses, staring up at the blue sky. She had one arm tossed over her head, and another clutching at the grass, as if she thought she would fly away if she let go. Her gray dress lay in a puddle around her. Her face was streaked with tears.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Go away?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” I sat down next to her. The ground was surprisingly hard. I ran my hand undernea
th me and discovered I was sitting on a smooth slab of flat stone, hidden by the muddy overgrowth.
Just as I lay back, she sat up. I sat up, and she flopped back down. Awkward. That was my every move, when it came to her.
Now we were both lying down, staring up at the blue sky. It was turning gray, the color of the Gatlin sky during hurricane season.
“They all hate me.”
“Not all of them. Not me. Not Link, my best friend.”
Silence.
“You don’t even know me. Give it time; you’ll probably hate me, too.”
“I almost ran you down, remember? I have to be nice to you, so you don’t have me arrested.”
It was a lame joke. But there it was, the smallest smile I have possibly ever seen in my life. “It’s right up at the top of my list. I’ll report you to that fat guy who sits in front of the supermarket all day.” She looked back up at the sky. I watched her.
“Give them a chance. They’re not all bad. I mean, they are, right now. They’re just jealous. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“They are.” I looked at her, through the tall grass. “I am.”
She shook her head. “Then you’re crazy. There’s nothing to be jealous of, unless you’re really into eating lunch alone.”
“You’ve lived all over.”
She looked blank. “So? You’ve probably gotten to go to the same school and live in the same house your whole life.”
“I have, that’s the problem.”
“Trust me, it’s not a problem. I know about problems.”
“You’ve gone places, seen things. I’d kill to do that.”
“Yeah, all by myself. You have a best friend. I have a dog.”