The Taking

I remembered one time, when I was thirteen and I’d first gotten my period, that my mom and I had stayed up well after midnight watching chick flicks and eating ice cream straight out of the carton while she’d explained to me all the important girl-stuff, like tampons and condoms, and boys and kissing.

She told me about her first date with my dad, when he’d forgotten his wallet and she’d had to pay for everything. And their second date, when he forgot it again and how he’d had to beg her to give him a third chance, promising that he’d show her his cash when he picked her up, because he didn’t want her to think he was a total loser and was just trying to get free meals out of her.

She’d wrapped her arms around me then and told me all about the night I was born, and the way my dad cried harder than anyone in the room, including me.

And here we were, strangers in a strange house with nothing to say to each other.

The knocking at my window startled me, and I practically leaped off my bed. I looked at my open curtains and saw Tyler glancing at me from over the edge of my windowsill.

Smiling and shaking my head, I loped toward the window, my socks whispering across the floor as I came to a skidding stop. I slid my window open and leaned out a little, looking toward the front, and then the back, of the house to see if anyone else was around. “Why didn’t you come to the door like a normal person?”

Tyler grinned back at me. “I thought this was our thing.” When I stared at him blankly, he raised his eyebrows. “You know, you came to my window; I come to yours.” He shrugged and pushed his hands into the pockets of his zip-up hoodie.

Letting out a small laugh, I balanced against my elbows. “I’m not sure we have a thing, but okay.” I didn’t tell him that using the windows had been mine and Austin’s thing, because it didn’t matter anymore. Austin and Cat had new things now. Things that had nothing at all to do with me.

“So, how was it? Your first day back and all?”

The fact that he was here, standing outside my window and asking me how my day was, almost made me cry. No one else had bothered to ask how I was. He was the first person who wasn’t pulling me at both ends, like I was a rope in a tug-of-war. “You really don’t want to know,” I answered. “This whole returning thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Yeah? What was it supposed to be like?”

I considered that for a moment, leaning forward against the windowsill as I chewed the side of my lip. “Good question. I feel like people should be showering me with gifts and cakes and shooting confetti cannons in my honor. And maybe someone should carry me on their shoulders. A little less with the crazy dads and the bickering parents and . . .” I stopped short of saying how boyfriends should still be boyfriends and not be hooking up with my best friend the first chance they get.

Ex-best friend, I corrected silently.

“Or making chalk masterpieces for you?” Tyler asked, grinning mischievously as he bit his bottom lip.

“Yeah.” My voice dropped, and I shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal even though it was a huge deal. I leaned farther out the window so I could get a glimpse of his handiwork. “Like that.”

Tyler was studying me, his green eyes, just a shade darker than Austin’s, never leaving mine. I could’ve sworn his cheeks flushed just a little, but he managed to change the subject effortlessly. “People are talking about you. At school.”

“Talking good or talking bad?” Not that I cared, really, but I couldn’t help being curious about the kind of gossip my reappearance had stirred up. I guess towns like Burlington were that way; news always spread fast.

“Wrong, mostly. A lot of stupid speculation about where you’ve been all this time. Abducted, runaway, sold into white slavery, that kind of shit.” He smiled, and his teeth flashed white and straight, and I wondered if he’d had braces when I was gone or if they were always that perfect. I tore my eyes away from them.

“Hey, check it out.” I left the window and came back with a shiny new phone. Before showing him, I pressed the button to check the time on it. “Look what my mom got me today.”

He leaned back on his heels, that flawless grin lighting up his entire face. A groove etched its way into his cheek, producing a dimple, something I had no business noticing. “Told you she’d get you a new one. Here.” He held out his hand, and I let him take it from me. His fingers moved expertly over the phone’s slick, flat screen, waking it up and pulling up the contacts list. I knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t mention the fact that his would be the only name in the list, and I didn’t mention the tiny flutter that erupted in the base of my stomach because I was now in possession of his number.

I watched as he dialed himself then, and the phone in his pocket vibrated. “Now I have your number too.” He handed it back to me and we stood there for a moment, our eyes locked. It was too long, and we both knew it, but neither of us looked away, and then it was way, way too long. I’m not sure if it meant something, or nothing, and I hated how badly I wished I could see inside his head, to read his thoughts. But eventually my cheeks got hot, and I blinked first.

“So, I have this thing . . .” he started, pointing in a general way toward his house or his car but making it clear he had to go.

“Oh yeah. Sure. Go ahead.” I was stammering, and I hated that he was making me stammer at all. “I’ll see you lat—”