Page 127 of Them Bones

And keeping order restored

‘Til The Men They Couldn’t Hang

Stepped to the mic and sang

And their voices rang with that Aryan twang

She thought of that night in the hotel in the city. She remembered washing away her blood – the last remnants of her virginity – and Shane, dropping to his knees and hooking her leg over his shoulder, licking away the sharp, slicing pain.

I got to your house this morning

Just a little after nine

In the middle of that riot

Couldn’t get you off my mind

When he’d stood again, water running down his naked body, he’d taken her in his arms and murmured into her ear, “I want to show you things to do with your body that you can’t even dream of… I want to doeverythingwith you that two people can do together…”

She was trembling with desire, the memory burned into her brain, and she thought her heart might literally burst, right there, right in the middle of that damn concert, because one person couldn’t possibly contain so much love.

So I’m at your house this morning

Just a little after nine

‘Cause it was in Bobcaygeon

Where I saw the constellations reveal themselves

One star at a time

I love you,she was screaming silently.

“I know,” he said in her ear, “I love you, too.”

NICK

Nick couldn’t remember getting in his car. He couldn’t remember driving back to Ontario, or to the outskirts of Toronto. He didn’t remember pulling onto Laney’s street, or parking his Sunfire across the road from her house.

But that’s where he found himself.

He fiddled with the radio, trying to find a channel that wasn’t riddled with static.

“… you a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!”a newscaster was saying.“That’s it for me for tonight, folks. Have a beautiful Christmas Eve!”

Christmas Eve,Nick thought…

It was Laney’s seventeenth birthday.

SHANE

The concert ended just after ten, and it was snowing hard as they left the city and headed back to Jerry’s.

Laney was humming along to Christmas music, her hand stuck out the window like she was trying to catch snowflakes with her palm.

“Get your hand back in here before you get frostbite!” Shane barked.

“Okay,dad,”she said with an eyeroll, cranking the handle and rolling the window back up.

---