Page 100 of Our Crooked Hearts
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The suburbs
Right now
The car that almost hit me swerved madly but stayed off the grass, coming to a halt about thirty yards away. Somebody kicked open the driver’s door and stepped out.
“Ivy,what the fuck!”
Nate’s eyes were moon-size, one of them circled by a yellowing patch of bruise. I could hear Haim spilling out of his car radio.
“Nate.” I thanked, kind of, whatever forces had sent him my way. “I need a ride.”
He stalked over and gripped my arm, fingers digging in above the elbow.
“Are you insane? Is there a cult ofnaked effing forest womenin this town? And you’re all trying to get me locked up forvehicular manslaughter?”
Then he yanked his hand away with a yelp. I wasn’t sure what I’d done, but my temples throbbed and I knew it was something. I stepped forward. He took half a step back.
“Don’t grab me again. Ever.”
“Okay,” he said dazedly, looking between me and his fingers. “Sure.”
I darted a glance back at the woods. “Look, I really need a ride. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
He gave a short nod and I followed him up the road. There was a girl in his car, gaping at me. A sophomore, I was pretty sure, with a dark red bob and this spare Charlotte Gainsbourg kind of beauty.
“Hi,” I said, climbing in, then turned to scan the woods. As Nate took the car out of park, Marion broke through. Low to the ground, like she’d been creeping.
“Hey,” the sophomore said thinly. “Do you see that?”
“Drive,” I said.“Drive.”
Marion was up now, watching from the shoulder. It was awful to see her and worse when she was out of sight.
I perched between their two seats, watching the road. The thin spits of white line soothed me, issuing at intervals like pages from a printer.
“Um.” The girl shifted, not quite looking at me. “I’ve got workout clothes in my bag. They’re not clean, but…”
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t care if they’re clean.”
She passed back a wad of black activewear and I wriggled in. Just being clothed helped. Not with my modesty, which I seemed to have left in my life before the golden box, but with that skinned, raggedy feeling ofmuchness.
“Was that the same girl from the other night?” Nate’s voice was tight, abrupt.
“Yeah,” I said. “That was her.”
A long pause. “So she did know you.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand it,” he said quietly, to himself. Then, “Are you gonna be okay?”
He asked it in the way people do when they want you to say,Yeah, of course,so I met his eyes in the rearview mirror and said, “Yeah. Of course.”
He was driving toward my house, but I couldn’t go there. Marion would be right behind me. I didn’t want to imagine what she’d do to my dad if she had to go through him to get to me. Nowhere seemed safe enough, but I knew where Iwantedto go, so I told Nate, “Drop me up there.”
He stopped beside a grassy, moon-gray hill that unrolled to meet a row of fenced backyards. “I can go another couple blocks. You don’t want me to drop you off at your house?”
