The Beautiful Now Read online

I watched for a few seconds as my mom cross-stitched on a pillow. Alton sat to her left with his arm slung around her shoulders. His eyes were closed and his fingers were rubbing the upper part of her chest. Not her actual boob, but too close for my comfort.

  I wished he wouldn’t do things like that when I could see. It gave me the creeps big time. He wouldn’t dare do something like that in public, but I was quickly learning that Alton was a different person behind closed doors. The polite mask he wore for the world to see was a far cry from the way he really was.

  I was pretty sure that was the case with everybody in Shepherd’s Mill.

  Everybody except Dane James.

  “Hi, honey,” Mom greeted absently, barely glancing up from her pillow. But when she did, she did a double take. “What on earth are you wearing? Whose shirt is that?”

  Of course, she would notice my clothes first thing. We had a part to play and at that moment I was failing.

  I sighed. Considering the way she freaked out over the dirt on my Nikes, I dreaded to hear what she would say about my pants when I showed her.

  “A boy’s.”

  “Why are you wearing a boy’s shirt tied around your waist? You look like a ragamuffin.” I glanced over at Alton. I didn’t want to talk about it in front of him. It was embarrassing to begin with, but discussing it in front of my gross stepfather just felt…wrong.

  When I didn’t answer right away, Momma prompted me. “Brinkley, did you hear me? What’s with the shirt?”

  My cheeks stung as I thought about the stain between my legs, and how Lauren and her sheep had reacted. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Mom set the pillow on her lap and frowned up at me. I had her full attention now. “You’ll tell me now, young lady.”

  Again I glanced nervously at Alton, who hadn’t bothered to open his eyes or stop rubbing my mom’s chest. At that point, I was okay with it, though. If he was distracted, I wouldn’t have to worry about him seeing my predicament. That was a plus.

  Hurriedly, I lifted the arms of Dane’s shirt so that Momma could see my bloody pants, but I quickly let them drop again in case Alton bothered to look up. That is, if he would’ve bothered to stop molesting my mother right in front of me.

  Blech!

  Momma smiled. “Awww, my little girl’s growing up. Becoming a woman.”

  At that, Alton’s head snapped up, and when I glanced over, his gaze was trained on me. I shivered at how icy it was.

  My stepfather’s eyes were a dark blue, like the deepest, coldest part of the ocean. They were just as intimidating, too, like scary things lurked just beneath the surface. I never could hold them for very long. They made me feel uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t yet grasp. So, as always, I looked away after a few seconds.

  “Can I just go to my room? My stomach hurts.” And it did. It had begun to throb, a deep ache that was spreading across my lower abdomen and down to the tops of my thighs.

  “Of course. I’ll bring up the heating pad. Change your clothes and I’ll wash up what you’re wearing so you can give that shirt back to its owner. What did you say the boy’s name was?”

  “Dane. His name is Dane James.”

  At that, my stepfather began to pay very close attention to me. His hand stilled and he sat up straighter. “What were you doing with Dane James, Brinkley?” When I didn’t answer immediately, he barked my name again, making me jump. “Brinkley! Answer me!”

  “A bunch of us were, uh, out playing in the fields.” I didn’t want to mention the river since we weren’t supposed to have a key to the gate that allowed us to get down that far.

  Alton frowned. “You shouldn’t be hanging around with that boy.”

  “Why? He’s nice.”

  “What did I tell you about talking back to me?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I could imagine it seeping down my neck, past my chest and back into my pounding heart.

  “Y-you said not to do it.”

  “Then what are you doing now?”

  “I was…I was just explaining. Dane is—”

  “I don’t want an explanation. He works here and you are to stay away from him. End of discussion. Am I making myself clear?”

  I clamped my lips shut and nodded once, curtly. “Can I go to my room now?”

  “Yes.” Eagerly, I turned and started up the stairs, but Alton wasn’t finished. The forbidding boom of his voice caused me to falter and I tripped on the first step. “I mean it, Brinkley. Stay away from him.”

  I righted myself, nodded again, and kept climbing. Little did I know…little did we all know that asking me to stay away from Dane James was like asking me to stay away from air or water or life or love.

  It was impossible.

  Chapter 4

  I was playing Atari in my room when I heard the first one.

  Tick.

  I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was either a sound effect from the game I was playing—well, the game I was losing—or a skip in the cassette tape I was listening to. It was when I heard the second one, a much louder one, that I realized it wasn’t the game or the music.

  Tick.

  Quickly, I hit the red stop button on the controller and turned down the volume on my boombox so I could hear better. As I listened, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. There was the squawk of the frogs around the pond off in the distance, the soft hiss of cool air pouring from the vent next to my bed, and the electronic buzz of my black and white television. Nothing unusual, and certainly no ticking.

  Until I heard it again.

  One more sharp tick.

  I jerked my head around. The sound was coming from my window.

  I was instantly afraid. I’d watched too many scary movies and my imagination was far too vivid to write it off as something innocent. My brain automatically conjured up all kinds of bloodthirsty creatures lurking outside in the dark. But then I remembered I was twelve years old, too old to really believe that.

  After at least a full minute of talking myself down, I began to rationalize and became more curious about the noise than afraid of it.

  Well mostly.

  I pushed myself upright and threw my legs over the side of the bed. I listened to the silence. A tiny part of me still secretly prepared to hear a roar or claws ripping into the side of the house, something terrifying and monstrous. My heart thudded heavily as I eased my feet onto the floor. I was fully prepared to bolt if I heard growling.

  But I didn’t, so I made my way slowly toward the window. I reasoned with myself as I moved, listing possible explanations (other than monsters) for the noise—a tree branch scraping the side of the house, some debris blowing through the yard, some nighttime bug snapping its hard-shelled body against the glass.

  My fingers only trembled a little when I pushed the curtains to one side and peered through the tiny slit. At first, all I saw was half my face and the bright glow of the television behind me. But after a few seconds, after my eyes adjusted to see past my own reflection, I managed to look out into the night. That’s when I saw that there was, in fact, something in the yard. And that the something was actually a someone.

  It was Dane James.

  The One Who Stayed.

  I recognized him the instant my eyes focused on him. I thought I’d probably recognize him anywhere, in any amount of light. If I didn’t recognize the way he looked, I’d recognize the way he made me feel. Even in the night, in low light, from this distance, through a pane of glass that reflected my own face, I felt happy and warm and somehow relieved.

  Dane was standing right where the crescent of the outdoor light faded into the darkness of the trees. He looked a little like a ghost. Some sort of product of the night, an arm maybe or some other kind of projection, reaching just enough into the light to grab me.

  And he did grab me.

  Somewhere way down deep in my stomach. I felt him like a flutter in my belly. The boy who saved me with his red plaid shirt and his autumn-colored eyes was at
my house. Standing in my yard. Throwing rocks at my window. And I was excited to see him.

  In that instant, I didn’t care that my mother would freak if she knew Dane was out there. I didn’t care that my stepfather would kill me if he saw. I didn’t care that it was probably highly inappropriate for a young girl to be opening her bedroom window to talk to a worker’s boy in the middle of the night. I didn’t care about any of that. I only cared about talking to Dane James, The One Who Stayed. I only cared about how thrilled I was that he had come to see me.

  I flipped open the lock at the top of the window and pushed up the heavy pane, sticking my head out enough that I was pretty sure no one in the house could hear me talking.

  “What are you doing here?” I loud-whispered down to him.

  “I came to check on you.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “To make sure you were okay.”

  I didn’t respond immediately. For a few seconds, the humiliation of “the event” returned full force and choked out anything I might’ve said like a tight fist trying to strangle me. I wished he would just forget the whole thing.

  After a deep breath and a swallow, however, I finally managed to respond in an audible voice. “I’m fine.”

  “Then come on. Let’s go.”

  “Go? Go where? It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I know it’s the middle of the night. Who cares?”

  “I care. I’ll get in trouble.”

  “Don’t be a chicken.”

  “I’m not a chicken.” Even as I replied, I shoved my chin up a notch, nearly cracking my head on the window.

  “Good. Then come on.”

  I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I shouldn’t let any boy, much less this boy, talk me into sneaking out of the house, but I knew in my heart that he wasn’t talking me into anything. I wanted to go with him. Wherever he was going, I wanted to go, too. I didn’t even care where it was.

  Impulsively, before I could think twice and change my mind, I agreed. “Give me one sec.”

  Hurriedly, I closed the window and, with my pulse pounding, I threw off my nightgown and pulled on a pair of yellow shorts and a tank top with pink and yellow butterflies on one shoulder. I pushed my feet into my white Nikes and hoped we weren’t going somewhere they’d get dirty. Momma was still fussing about the last time she had to clean them.

  I crept down the stairs, pausing at every creak in the wood until I was finally able to make my way onto the carpet and race through the dining room into the kitchen. I knew I’d have a better chance of getting out the back door without anyone hearing me. The front door groaned when it opened, sort of like an old ghost that was too tired to do much haunting.

  Once I’d eased open the deadbolt and turned the knob lock, I cracked the door just enough to squeeze out and then quickly shut it behind me. I stopped on the little concrete stoop and took a deep breath before I moved another inch. I could still turn back… It wasn’t too late.

  Yet.

  Just then, a gust of balmy night air whipped around the corner of the house, ruffling my loose blonde hair and tickling my nose. I inhaled slowly, another long, deep breath. To a girl who’d felt something like a prisoner since coming to Shepherd’s Mill, the darkness smelled like freedom, freedom to be myself again, even if just for a little while. In the middle of the night. Where no one could see, no one but a boy who didn’t care about my chains or the people who held them. He only cared about me. He just wanted someone to run with.

  I took off, racing around into the front yard. As I ran, something in the back of my mind warned me that Dane would spell trouble for me, but I ignored it. I ignored it like I wanted to ignore my mother and her silly rules. I ignored it like I wanted to ignore my stepfather and his snobby friends. I ignored it like I wanted to ignore the whole stupid town and the person they were trying to force me to become.

  I didn’t stop running until I was practically on top of Dane James. He reached out to stop me with his thin, lanky arms. I didn’t know if I was breathless from running or breathless from his touch. He was finally touching me and it felt so nice.

  “Where are we going?” I huffed.

  “This way.” He tipped his shaggy dark brown head toward the fields, letting his hands fall away from my arms. I missed the warmth of them instantly.

  Dane turned toward the driveway and took a single step forward. I was going to follow, but he stopped and looked back at me, so I stopped, too. As casually as if he were reaching for a napkin or a piece of candy from his grandmother’s peppermint dish, he reached out and took my fingers, lacing them with his own. I held on tight as he gently pulled me along beside him.

  I knew then that Dane James could lead me anywhere and I’d gladly follow.

  “Where are we going?” I asked a second time, trying my hardest to keep my cool and ignore the funny feeling in my stomach.

  “Into the field.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged again.

  I thought of his shrugs. And his hands. And his funny colored eyes. And then I thought of his lips. “Do you need a new piece of wheat to chew?”

  “I don’t chew wheat. It’s prairie grass. How come you don’t know the difference between wheat and grass?”

  “I haven’t been here that long. This is the first time I’ve ever even seen wheat,” I defended.

  He seemed to accept that as a good enough reason.

  “Prairie grass is sweet, kinda like watermelon. My dad hates for me to chew it.”

  I glanced over at him, at the way he seemed not to care too much about the things the rest of us did, like what Lauren Stringer thought or what his dad wanted. I figured him chewing the grass had more to do with his dad hating it than with the way it tasted. I couldn’t know for sure, but I had a hunch. I doubted a boy like Dane James cared much about the rules. He sure made me care a lot less about them. That much I knew.

  After a few seconds of silence, we crossed the driveway and stepped into the edge of the field. I glanced over my shoulder, back at the house I’d just left. “How’d you know which window was mine?”

  Dane paused long enough to point in the opposite direction, out over the wispy tops of the growing grain, to one of the barns. “I can see it from my room. Mine’s the one with the light on.”

  My eyes followed his hand and found the single dot of yellow off in the distance. It emanated from the second level of one of the barns that sat out in the center of my stepfather’s field. It was one of many—barns and fields—that Alton Peterson owned.

  “You and your dad live up there?”

  He gasped in mock horror. “Oh shit! What would Lauren say?”

  I slid my gaze over to his profile and laughed when I saw that he was smiling. He was joking. About Lauren Stringer.

  It made him something like a superhero in my eyes.

  I liked it.

  I liked him.

  “I’m sure she knows.”

  “I’m sure she does. She knows everything, right? Or at least she thinks she does.”

  I smiled wider.

  Yeah, I liked Dane James a lot.

  We fell silent as he stepped into the field. He tugged me along behind him and I gladly followed him through the waist-high ocean of feathery crop. It swayed in the moonlight, silvery waves tossed gently back and forth by the warm night breeze. I held out the hand that wasn’t curled in Dane’s and let the thin stalks trail between my fingers. Their fluffy caps tickled one palm as Dane’s calloused skin warmed the other. I drew in a gulp of air and held it in my lungs. Something about the night felt perfect and…valuable, like it was special in a way I wouldn’t see much of in my life. I sure hadn’t up to that point. I didn’t want to let it go, so I held it inside me, trapped with the sweetly-scented air, for as long as I could hang on. Until I had to let it go.

  In the moment I exhaled, I knew being with Dane James was right. Even though I’d get in trouble if I were discovered, I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Somehow with this boy
I didn’t know, who had the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen, getting in trouble seemed small. And he seemed big. Bigger than life. He was worth the risk. I didn’t really understand it, but I knew it intuitively. My weakness for one boy, for the one wrong boy, was already taking hold. He needed me as much as I needed him and the rest didn’t really matter.

  Dane led me deep into the field, so deep I was beginning to worry that we were going to get lost. We’d come so far I couldn’t even see the light from my window anymore. The farther we walked from the house, the darker the night appeared to grow. The faint glow of the moon overhead was our only light and Dane James was my only measure of security. He was all I had to hold on to.

  He was my anchor.

  He was my compass.

  Dane slowed to a stop right in front of a dark lump in our path. I had to stare at it for a few seconds to realize it was a rock. A big one. It didn’t stand much higher than my chin, but its flat surface was bigger around than the hood of a car. It reminded me of a giant hockey puck that had been thrown down in the middle of the field. A life raft in a sea of nothingness.

  Releasing my hand, Dane climbed up onto the boulder. Once he was up there, he leaned over the edge and wiggled his fingers at me. “Come on,” he urged.

  I knew I could probably climb up by myself. Maybe Dane knew that, too. But I liked holding his hand, so I took it. Maybe he liked holding mine, too. He didn’t care how rich or poor he was, so why should I? I knew my mother did. And my stepfather. But at that moment, the only thing I could bring myself to care about was how much I liked this boy and how it made me feel when he looked at me.

  I followed Dane up onto the rock, which was still warm from the heat of the sun pouring onto it all day. He released my hand to stretch out on his back, belly up to the stars. I did the same. Our arms touched from shoulder to wrist and I thought I could feel Dane’s pinky finger brushing up against mine. I wished quietly that he’d hold my hand again, but he didn’t. He just lay there beside me, silent and strong.

  I stared up at the midnight sky. The stars were more plentiful and more obvious than I’d ever seen them. Maybe it was the fact that we were immersed in darkness that made them seem brighter. They sparkled and shone like diamonds on black velvet. Or maybe it was the boy beside me, making me notice them in a way I never had. I couldn’t be sure. I only knew that I’d never seen such a dazzling sky.