“Nah. Our neighbors are pretty far.” I sucked on my braces again. “But this whispering sucks. I’ll come down.”
“Why?”
“To talk better,” I said and wondered if turning thirteen had magically erased some of my shyness.
Or maybe it’s just this boy.
“You don’t know me,” he said. “I could be dangerous.”
“Are you?”
He thought for a second. “Maybe.”
I pursed my lips. “Are you going to hurt me if I come down there?”
“No,” he said, irritated. “But you shouldn’t be taking chances.”
“Just stay put.”
I was in my pajamas—leggings with a slouchy UCSC sweatshirt over them. I grabbed my Converse shoes from the closet of my super-neat room and slipped them over my socks.
I stuck my head out the window again. The boy was still there.
“Be right down.”
I sounded as if I climbed down the trellis on the regular. I wasn’t the sneaking-out-at-night type of kid, but I was surprising myself right and left that night. I tucked my dark hair out of my way, climbed up onto my desk, and then stuck one foot out onto the ledge.
“Don’t,” the boy said from below. “You’re gonna fall.”
“I will not,” I said, and carefully found my grip on the inside of the window ledge with my hands while my right foot snaked out for a rung on the trellis.
“How do you know it’ll hold?” the boy called up.
I had no idea if it would hold, but I’d already left the safety of the window ledge for the thinner, wooden crisscrosses of the trellis. I brushed vines out of my way and climbed slowly down, making sure to take my time, to find each foothold. Then I plopped to the ground and dusted my hands together.
“See? Stronger than it looks,” I said.
The boy glowered. “You could’ve been hurt.”
“Why do you care?”
“I…I don’t. Just saying.”
He jammed his hands in his jacket pockets and flipped a lock of hair out of his eyes. He had beautiful eyes—blue like topaz. Up close, I could see his jeans had holes in them and not because that was the style. His jacket was worn at the elbows, and his hiking boots were scuffed, the laces held together by knots. A ratty old blue backpack hung off his shoulders.
But he was even better looking than I imagined from that first glimpse, though in a totally different way than River. This boy had a softer face, somehow. Still manly—I imagined he’d grow up to be very handsome. His eyebrows were thick but not too thick and looked perpetually knitted together with worry. He had a nice nose, and his mouth was pretty perfect. I actually had no idea what a “perfect” mouth looked like on a boy, except that this boy had one.
We stood for a few quiet moments, taking each other in. The boy’s eyes swept over me and I wondered if he were taking inventory of me the same way I had of him. Normally, I’d have been self-conscious about my glasses, my braces, and my boobs that were growing in faster than I was ready for. I had no feature that anyone would call “perfect,” yet somehow, it was okay to be standing there in the dark with him.
“So…I’m Violet.”
“Miller.”
“Miller is your first name?”
“Yeah. So?”
“It’s usually a last name.”