Page 3 of Into the Woods

The closer he moved to me, the softer his eyes became. And when his warm breath hit my cheek, I panicked, afraid that I’d somehow missed the moment. I turned to face him as his lips connected low on my cheek—but with the way I jerked, it was more like the corner of my mouth. My lips…

Christophe had kissed me. On. My. Lips.

He pressed his mouth to the edge of mine, his lips firm and soft at the same time. Like nothing I’d ever imagined.

I was stunned. Excited. Thrilled. But utterly shocked that he’d kissed me at all. And I was devastated that it was over way too soon. My fingers uncurled from where I’d had them fisted over my stomach, holding back the writhing serpents, and went straight to my mouth, as if I could capture his kiss and hold it there forever. The bubble of my crush—my first true love—expanding until it burst.

Christophe stepped back from me, surprise or maybe regret marring his perfect features. He shook his head as his eyes darted toward the picnic basket I’d brought with me. “I gotta go, Winn. I can’t stay. But I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.” He took another step back, and then another putting more space between us.

Confused, I stuttered, sounding a little like my best friend, “W-w-what? W-why?”

He couldn’t go, not yet. He was supposed to be here for another week. He never left me this early in the summer.

“It’s for school. I have orientation for college before classes start next week,” he said as if it was a universal truth. Something that everyone got to do. But it wasn’t. It was just another thing that separated us, one more experience that set his world apart from mine.

College was nothing more than a fairy tale for me. A pipe dream that would never become reality; it wasn’t like it was important to my mom and dad. All they cared about was their bar and partying and their skeevy friends.

Bright blue eyes searched my face, a soft smile pulling at Christophe’s lips—the ones that had just been on mine. His head canted to the side as he asked, “Was that your first kiss, Winifred L’Ourson?” His question was laced with a hint of something—teasing? Novelty, maybe? And when I didn’t answer, but only pressed my fingers to my lips even harder, his mouth pulled up higher into a crooked smile. “I like that—being your first kiss. It makes this even more special,” he said as he latched a silver chain around my wrist. The cool metal slid low, dragged down by a silver charm that was silently synonymous of our summers—a honeybee, fat and lazy, buzzing with perfect happiness.

“Be good for me, Winn.” His thumb flicked at the honeybee and then pressed it gently where it rested against the tender skin at the inside of my wrist. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he promised.

Then he turned and disappeared through the trees.

As I pulled the tiny knife from my pocket and dug its point into the unmarred bark of the gnarled oak—our tree—it never crossed my mind that would be the last time I’d see Christophe Robicheaux for a very long time.

It was the first summer he left me early.

He was my first love.

My first kiss.

The first to break my heart.

Chapter 2

Death

Winnie

My focus is splitbetween my parents and my best friend, Truie Cochonette. This isn’t new, nor is the fact that Tru is going to win out, if you can call anything about this situation a win.

I drop the folded wad of cash I made in tips tonight into the pocket of my coat and turn my back on my parents.

“Tru, look at me,” I say as soothingly as I can manage. “No, babe. Don’t look at them, focus on me. Just look at me.”

Her entire body trembles where she’s perched on the landing of the stairs, her view into the cramped living room unfortunately perfect. I shift to the side in an attempt to block the scene behind me. Even as I die a little inside, the relief is undeniable.

This is the biggest loss I’ve experienced thus far.

It’s certainly the most final, and if I were a normal twenty-two-year-old, I’d probably be falling apart just like Tru. Sadly, neither of us are anywhere close to being normal. We’re both broken. Tru just a little bit more than me, and maybe irrevocably so, I don’t know.

“How long have you been sitting here?” I gently place my hand on her knee, fully blocking her view of my mom’s arm hanging over the side of the sofa. Lank blonde hair that only hints at a time when it shined like mine does nothing to obscure the needle still stuck in her vein, dirty rubber tubing coiled on the floor next to her.

I have no doubt that my father is in a similar state.

“Have you called the police?”

The question is rhetorical; there’s no way Tru dialed 9-1-1, and not just because she’s shaking like a chihuahua that’s downed four shots of espresso. Not all cops are heroes, at least not the ones here—not the ones who found Tru, dragged her through hell and left her alone in the dark.

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