Page 27 of The Narrow

“You sure? It is your turn to share your big life crisis,” Veronica says.

I shake my head. I can’t tell them. I’ve never told my friends anything about Luke and home. There is a clear, bright line between Atwood and the real world. If I tell them, it frays. Blurs. Breaks. The Eden who is here is not the Eden who’s had a dead bolt on her bedroom door since elementary school.

But she has followed me here, that other Eden. The Eden who goes to sleep afraid. The Eden with anger like acid eating away at her slowly from the inside out. I have carried her wounds with me here, and they refuse to heal.

“Hey, Eden,” Veronica says, and she reaches out toward me, hand closing over my arm, and in that instant, I am the wrong girl entirely, in the wrong place, and I jerk away from her with a sound in the back of my throat that is almost a snarl. Veronica stares at me, hurt and mystified.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. I’m here, I remind myself. I’m safe. Except Atwood doesn’t feel very safe anymore. “Let’s just do the debrief.”

Veronica looks skeptical, but she doesn’t press.

I try to settle into the rhythm of conversation again, laugh along at Veronica’s tale of accidentally stealing a moped in Rome and Zoya’s comedy of errors trying to get from Europe, where her diplomat mother is currently assigned, to the US. I keep bracing myself for the moment when I’ll have to lie. But Zoya is the one toask, “What did you get up to this summer?” and I shrug and say, “I just bummed around at home.”

And that’s it. The conversation moves on; everyone is eager to get in another story. Part of me longs for them to ask more. To insist. Confession builds like a pressure in my throat, but as I grow quieter, shrinking against the cushions, no one seems to notice.

Their faces shine when they talk about the classes they’re taking, the schools they’re applying to. I haven’t thought beyond the end of the year because I can’t bear to. I’m losing Atwood.

I’ve maybe lost Atwood already.

With each minute the distance between us seems to grow. Already I’m realizing I have to ask them to explain things that they’ve clearly talked about, tell me things I’ve missed. I thought that I could leave the summer behind. But the memories are as vivid as the room around me, the pain in my arm an unshakable reminder of what happened. I can still smell it—the stink on my clothes when I stripped them off at the end of the night. I can still taste the scorch of cheap alcohol, which I refused at first, before I realized it made the hours more tolerable. I can feel the weight of his arm across my shoulders, and when Veronica casually leans over, arm across the back of the couch, I lurch to my feet.

The conversation grinds to a halt. The others look at me, curious and concerned.

“Eden?” Veronica says.

“Sorry. I’m not feeling well,” I say. Now that I’m on my feet, I feel trapped, panicky. I need to get out of here.

“We haven’t gotten to the good stuff,” Ruth says.

“I know. I’m sorry. We can catch up this weekend or something? I’m feeling really gross,” I say. I want to run. I don’t know why this is happening now. Why these memories have woken inside my body so suddenly, so strongly.

“Do you want us to walk you back to Abigail House?” Zoya asks.

I shake my head quickly. “No, stay. Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I insist. I don’t give them the chance to object. I grab my bag and head for the exit.

The first part of the summer was normal. Lonely but normal. I haven’t attended school locally since fifth grade, so I don’t really have any friends back home. I spent my time chatting online or working onGrave Belles, redrawing the early pages now that my art has improved so much, revising some things I changed in the story. Then my parents took off—Mom on a business trip, Dad off fishing to prove his manhood to his outdoorsy father.

Luke was staying in the pool house. We’d managed to avoid each other most of the summer. He seemed to be doing better. I was glad—but it didn’t mean I was suddenly filled with sisterly affection for the brother who’d once put all my books in the bath and filled it up because of some minor slight.

When I heard someone rattling around in the cupboards downstairs, I assumed it was him, but when I went down, Dylan was there instead, standing in the kitchen holding a box of crackers, crumbs scattered over the counter.

“Hey, Princess.”

I knew Dylan, of course. He was Luke’s friend; eventually, we realized he was Luke’s dealer, too. He was a big white guy with a thick chest and huge arms. He would be handsome if it weren’t forthe ugly expression he always had on his face, superior and sneering. He always had girls hanging around. Not now, though. Now it was just him, in my kitchen, exactly where he wasn’t supposed to be. Because Luke was on probation after being caught breaking into a gas station, wasted and high, and attacking the cop who came to arrest him.

If Luke was anything but rich and white, my parents would be paying for a casket, not the best defense attorney in the state. As it was, he hadn’t been charged with the assault and had just been given probation for the break-in. But if he violated it, he went to jail, and the assault charges would be filed. The terms of his probation required that he not associate with known criminals, including a whole list of his friends.

Dylan was at the top of that list.

“You can’t be here,” I said stupidly, staring at him.

“It’s cool. Luke invited me,” he said.

“He’s not allowed to be around you,” I shot back. “I’m calling my mom.” I turned to head back upstairs.

Before I even heard him move, he had spun me around and shoved me up against the wall. His hand was on my chest, his fingers almost at my throat. It didn’t hurt, really. It was more the weight of him, the instant understanding that I was trapped, and that whatever happened next, it was entirely up to him.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” he said cheerfully.

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