into you, trust me.” I left it at that. The longing coming off Milly for Skye had practically wavered there in the air earlier. True, I hadn’t picked up anything else. If anything had ever happened between them, I hadn’t seen it. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
“I can’t help it if she likes me, Lana,” Skye said. His own hands were in his pockets now, almost mimicking my pose. “But I don’t feel that way about her. I swear.”
When I didn’t say anything, Skye took a step closer. “When we kissed earlier... If you’d wanted to, you could’ve looked into my head, right?”
“I told you I wouldn’t do that,” I snapped.
Skye was watching me closely now, ducking his head so that he could see into my face. “Do you promise, Lan? Do you promise you would never do that?”
If he hadn’t said that, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so tempted. But there was something so intense in his gaze, something that made the hairs on my arms stand up. And it was like any temptation, like Skye himself—once I’d been told I couldn’t, I had to.
“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “I promise.”
His expression softened. “And I promise Milly and I are just friends. She’s only hanging around me because we both miss Kim. That’s it.”
He smiled at me, a dimple flashing in one cheek. In the shady woods, his eyes seemed a darker blue, and when he tugged me to him, I let him.
When he leaned in to kiss me, I closed my hands around his forearms. The key tattoo was just there underneath my palm, and there was one brief moment when I tried to tell myself not to do it. That he had said there was nothing going on with Milly, and I needed to trust him.
But another darker part whispered, Then why is he still keeping you a secret?
He had asked me never to read him, and I had promised, but standing there in the woods behind my home, his skin pressed against mine, the temptation was too strong. Just a little bit, I told myself. So I can be sure.
As always, it felt like opening a door, and I tried to keep the door opened only a crack. Just enough to see if he was lying to me about Milly.
But the moment the door from my mind to his opened, it was like a hurricane blew through it. Skye kissed me as image after image assaulted my mind. Kimberly crying. Kimberly shoving at Skye’s shoulders. They’re in a field somewhere, and it’s dark, and she needs to shut up, just shut up, shut up. Skye’s hands around Kimberly’s throat, and she’s kicking him, but he’s stronger and her kicks are getting weaker and weaker, and sweat is dripping down his face as he wonders why she won’t die, would she just die already—
My heart was in my mouth, my stomach rolling, and it took every bit of strength in me not to scream, not to push him away. But we were alone out here, far from anyone, and I’d told him I wouldn’t look. If he knew that I knew...
We parted, and he pressed his lips to my forehead while I shook. Please let him think it’s from the kiss.
I wasn’t sure how I managed to smile when he looked down at me. His eyes were so blue. Kimberly had looked into those eyes as he’d choked the life out of her. Kimberly, who had never left town, who had no glamorous future in L.A. Kimberly, who was probably at the bottom of a lake, or in a hole somewhere in that field I’d seen. Kimberly, who’d loved and trusted Skye like I had.
We stood there in the woods, looking at one another, and I tried to force my heart not to beat out of my chest, tried to keep my breathing calm. All I had to do was get back to the trailer. Get back to Momma, and get away from Skye. I could do this. I could.
And then Skye winced.
We both looked down, seeing my hand where it still clung to his forearm. I may have slowed my pulse and steadied my breathing, but I hadn’t stopped my fingers from digging into him, hard enough to break the skin. My nails had pierced his flesh, and Skye and I both watched as a single drop of blood welled up just over the teeth of his key tattoo.
His eyes met mine, and I knew there was no lie I could tell that would convince him that I hadn’t looked inside his mind. That I hadn’t seen. That I didn’t know.
I was in the woods behind my trailer with a boy who’d killed the last girl who loved him. I could look off to the horizon all I wanted, but no one was coming to save me. Maybe I couldn’t tell the future like Momma, but in that instant, I swore I could see it. When her reading with Milly was done, she’d come out and find Skye sitting there. Maybe there’d be dirt on his knees, and he might be breathing a little hard. He’d tell her I’d left. Maybe I headed out for track practice early, caught a ride with a friend—no, he wasn’t sure who. And then maybe later, he’d come back to this quiet place in Woodland Hills, and by the end of the night, I’d find myself lying next to Kimberly McEntire, wherever she was. For just a second, I thought of taking one more peek, trying to see what he had done with her. But I was too afraid to look again, afraid that anything I saw might break what was left of my mind.
Skye’s hands were tight around my wrists now, and I could feel that same dark anger I’d sensed earlier pulsing through him. Oh, Momma, I thought almost from a distance. You were wrong. I’m not going to track practice today.
But as the bones in my wrists creaked and popped, I remembered what Momma had said.
You are gonna run and run today. Fast.
A laugh nearly gurgled out of my throat, high and hysterical. “You’re damn right I am,” I muttered. I reached out.
I shoved.
I ran.
* * * * *
FIGMENT
by Jeri Smith-Ready
It begins, as always, in darkness.
I awake in transit, amid the clamor of voices and the clatter of trucks. Then a steady jet-engine roar lulls me to the edge of sleep.
If I’m waking, it means that someone believes in me again. Maybe it’s the man, woman, boy or girl I’ll soon befriend. Maybe it’s a person close to them. Or maybe it’s only my ex-friend’s employee who took this padded envelope I’ve been trapped inside and put it on a plane.
All that matters is that someone, somewhere, believes.
* * *
A woman’s soft footsteps accompany what I hope is the final leg of my journey. Her hands hold my envelope level before her, not swinging casually at the end of her arm the way the deliveryman carried me. It reminds me of the way Gordon’s butler used to deliver his vodka and pills on a silver tray.
“No more tears,” she murmurs. “He wasn’t worth it.”
But I’m not crying. I never cry.
She sniffles, then takes a deep, slow breath. “No more tears,” she repeats.
Ah, you weren’t talking to me. Never mind.
