Page 8 of Shy Girl

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ask him about his family, and he’ll respond with something like, “Do you think trees feel lonely in winter, when all their leaves abandon them?”

He makes me laugh more than I expect him to. Not because he’s funny, but because he’s so thoroughly himself that it borders on absurdity. One time, he asked if I’d ever cried over a tomato. “The

heirloom kind,” he explained, holding an imaginary fruit in his hands. “The kind that looks like it fought its way out of the dirt. It’s beautiful because it’s bruised, you know?”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but later that night, I thought about it while I crocheted. About the way Turtle talks like he’s trying to explain the world in a language only he understands. About how his eyes get glassy when he stares at the sky, like he’s looking for something he lost up there.

He’s smart, sharper than his appearance suggests. There’s a darkness to him, though, something frayed and restless at the edges. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens when he thinksno one’s watching, in the way his laughter sometimes catches, breaking apart before it fully lands.

“You ever feel like you’re too heavy for your own life?” he asked me once, lying back in the grass, his hacky sack forgotten.

“Yeah,” I said.

He nodded, closing his eyes against the sun. “Sometimes I think I’m carrying someone else’s weight,” he murmured. “Like I stole it by accident, and now I can’t give it back.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. We sat in silence, the wind brushing through the trees, and for once, it didn’t feel uncomfortable. It felt like something we were sharing, something fragile and unspoken, like a secret the world wasn’t ready to hear.

I watch him for a while longer, the sweater billowing slightly as he moves. Though Turtle wasn’t attractive—not in any

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conventional way—there was something about him that pulled me in. Maybe it was the way his long, chunky dreads hung down like roots seeking ground, or the sharp gaps in his teeth that made his smile feel lived-in, like it had survived something. Sometimes, late at night, I’d find myself thinking about him in ways that unsettled me. What would he be like in bed? The thought repulsed me,

twisted my stomach into knots, but it also lit something low and smoldering, something I didn’t know how to name.

Turtle could be a project, I told myself. Someone I could make better. I could clean him up, straighten his teeth, pull his life out of the dirt and make it bloom. But, secretly, I think it was the other way around. Turtle, with his effortless grin and his sun-worn skin, his easy way of breathing through a world that hadn’t been kind to him—he could makemebetter. He carriednothing but a backpack and the hacky sack in his pocket, and he radiated light. Turtle didn’t need a home because hewashome, in that loose, easy way I envied.

Maybe, I thought in my lonelier moments, I could be his home. The thought was ridiculous and fleeting, but it was mine. A selfish little fantasy I’d let run wild, just to feel its edges.

“Hey!”

I freeze, turning back around. His voice always had a way of stopping me in my tracks.

“Do you think this’ll be acceptable to wear in California?” he asks, grinning, holding out his arms like he’s modeling for a catalog. “I think I’m gonna make my way there tomorrow. Warmer outside, you know? Better for sleeping at night.”

The words land heavy, like stones in my chest. My smile drops, but I force it back into place, flimsy and hollow. “I’m sure you can wear it there,” I say, my voice thin, barely mine.

His honey-colored eyes glint in the sun, bright and warm, like the idea of leaving didn’t faze him at all. “Sweet. Thanks again, lady,”

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he says, giving me a quick thumbs-up before tossing the hacky sack back into the air.

I stand there, my heart tangled in something I don’t understand, something I don’t want to name. The tears press hot behind my eyes, sudden and sharp, threatening to spill. “Yeah. You’re welcome,” I say, the words trembling as I back away, my feet

dragging, the space between us stretching like a thread about to snap.

Turtle turns back to his game, his body moving with that effortless grace, his dreads catching the light, the sweater I madefor him hugging his skinny frame like it belonged there. I stand frozen, watching him, memorizing the way he exists, the way he fills the space around him without even trying.

I knew that it would be the last time I would ever see Turtle, and the fantasy of us quickly falls away.

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