Page 9 of Atone

God, he’s beautiful. Photos don’t do him justice.

One look and I can see why his social media accounts from before the incident show him constantly surrounded by women. His stare is intoxicating.

I wait for him to break my gaze. To set me free.

I wait for him to do anything other than watch me, but he holds my stare until Patience’s phone rings from the doorway.

As quickly as I had his attention, it disappears, and his eyes drop back to his journal.

It’s a setting sun after the longest day. Painting the sky in the most beautiful reds and oranges and then bathing alllight with darkness. Suddenly, I’m left in a world that’s colder.

Darker.

Empty again.

I bite my lower lip, glancing at the doorway, where Patience is even more irritated now that she’s on the phone than she was when she was talking to Teal. Any hints of the girl I saw smile at the carnival are gone.

“I swear your sister is going to have an ulcer by the time she’s thirty.” I shake my head, turning my attention back to Alex, who doesn’t look at me again. “Either that or she’ll be running a small country. I love her, but she’s a little terrifying.”

I swear the corner of his mouth ticks. But it could just be the shadows shifting through the blinds.

“I can’t handle them.” Patience storms into the room, shoving her phone into her purse.

“Who?”

“My parents. They act like my leaving for the summer is the end of the world. They’re lucky I didn’t go to college across the country.”

“I didn’t realize they were upset about the internship.” My eyebrows pinch. “Isn’t Professor Gray a big deal in criminal studies or whatever?”

“Criminal psychology,” she corrects me. “And yes, he is. But they don’t care about that. Anything that takes me one foot outside their precious town without them has them on edge. They’re trying to sabotage my trip.”

“So fight back.” I shrug. “It’s your life, Patience. And you earned your spot in that internship.”

“Try telling them that.”

“Take me to them, and I will.”

Her smile falls, and it takes me a moment to realize why the room is suddenly so silent. Alex has stopped writing again, and even if he’s not looking at me, his gaze has moved out the window. Patience must notice as well since she glances at him.

“You don’t want to meet them. Trust me.”

I roll my eyes. “They can’t be that terrible. Or, at least, no worse than mine. You saw the environment I grew up in. Now just imagine my parents being there, parading me around like a carnival act. Trust me, if I could handle that, then I can handle your parents.”

“It’s definitely unconventional,” Patience agrees, turning to Alex. “Did I tell you Mila grew up with a traveling carnival? I didn’t even know those things existed anymore. It’s wild.”

She always talks to her brother like at any second he might respond to her. It confused me when I first came here, but I’m slowly starting to understand it. While the rest of the town sees him as a warning or something to fear, she simply sees him as Alex.

Her brother.

Someone she loves and trusts. And I don’t doubt she hopes someday that person she grew up with will return to her.

“If you liked the carnival today, we should go back at night.” I brush my fingers over the navy cushion under me.

“I thought you said I could only drag you there once.”

“Being there reminded me that it’s not all terrible.” I shrug. “Especially without my parents lurking around every corner.”

While I have a love-hate relationship with being forced to work the carnival growing up, there were parts of it I enjoyed. The rides. The friends I made. The lessons it taught me in reading people.

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