Fifteen

My mind was made up—I was never having children. There was only one hour from the time I had arrived until the time I’d put Natalie and Lindsay to bed—they had regretfully informed me that their bedtime was eight, under the watchful eye of their brother—and they had already tired me out.

First, we’d had to put Natalie’s cookies in the oven, something she couldn’t do herself. Then, Lindsay had needed a bath, which was weird. Natalie told me that Lindsay could wash herself, and that I just had to be in the room, in case… Well, I wasn’t exactly sure in case of what. But I had to be there.

After that, they had climbed into their beds—bunk beds—and asked for a story. This one, I admit, I’d fobbed off on Bane. I simply couldn’t talk for that long in one stretch. Then they’d wanted hugs and kisses goodnight. By the time Bane and I had crept downstairs, I’d wanted to strangle myself. And I realized that Aunt Mo had done this every night—and might very well still do it, with Jack—for years, and with four children. The thought made me a little nauseous.

Bane and I collapsed onto the couch downstairs. Well, he collapsed; I sunk into it, with a grateful sigh. “They’re little balls of fire,” he chuckled. I nodded an agreement. Sometimes, I was grateful that I didn’t have siblings. Although cousins were just as bad.

We sat through several minutes of semi-awkward silence, during which I was uncomfortably aware of Bane’s proximity to me. “So,” he asked eventually, his voice sounding hoarse, “want to watch a movie, or something?”

“Sure,” I’d allowed. I didn’t particularly like watching movies—I didn’t really ever watch movies—but it was an easy out. You weren’t supposed to talk during movies, were you?

Now that Bane and I had no common bind to unite us, no goal that we were working towards, it was harder to be with him. I’d thought that I’d finally gotten to a point where I was somewhat comfortable with him, but this situation was proving me wrong.

Flicking through the channels, he eventually landed on some odd romance movie that I was pretty sure neither of us enjoyed. About halfway through, I began to doze off—I’m a morning person. I’d always lived by the adage, “The early bird gets the worm.” Well, I didn’t really believe that I got anything special by getting up early. That’s just the way I was. Even in the summer, I never rose later than seven.

Somehow—and I’m not entirely sure how it happened—but I wound up with my head on Bane’s shoulder. I must have actually fallen asleep for a moment. But when I opened my eyes—I was just resting them, I wasn’t sleeping—he was looking down at me with an odd expression on his face. “Sorry,” I muttered, lifting my head reluctantly. Boy, I felt like someone had stuffed my head with cotton. I was tired.

Bane reached around the side of my head and pushed me back down. “It’s fine,” he soothed. “Go back to sleep. It’s fine.”

Well, what was I supposed to do to that? Of course I lifted my head. “No, I’m awake,” I assured him, even though I most certainly was not. “Did I miss the end of the movie?”

He laughed quietly. “Yes, and I’m jealous. It was awful.”

“Did everything turn out alright?”

“Yes.” I was more or less sitting extremely close to Bane—I could feel his body heat all up my side—but this seemed alright, for some reason. I wasn’t as panicked by it as I normally would have been. Maybe it was because I was so tired. “I hate to make it go away by mentioning it, but you’re actually talking to me tonight. It’s nice.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t take a vow of silence. I talk when I need to.”

A piece of my hair was in my face. I brushed it away sleepily, and Bane made as if to reach for it, then changed his mind. “But do you talk when you want to?”

Again, I shrugged. “Yes.”

He hummed softly for a moment. Then he looked down, with me following his gaze, to our arms, lying next to each other, mine sheathed in a long black sleeve, as always. “Don’t you ever get hot in all those heavy clothes?” he asked, touching my sleeve lightly. Now that he mentioned it, I was sort of hot.

“Sometimes.” I slipped off the outer shirt that I had on, leaving just the tee shirt (also black) that I’d had beneath.

It didn’t take me long to realize something was wrong. Bane was looking again at my long, white (bite me Irish heritage) arms, in particular at shoulder to elbow area of my right arm. “Sweet Jesus, Deirdre, where’d you get that scar?”

In the fastest I’d moved in God only knows how many years, I had my jacket back on. I hugged it to me, like it was a security blanket, like I’d drown if I let it go. Bane inched away, giving me space to breathe. “It’s okay,” he muttered, soothing me once again. There seemed to be a pattern in all of this. “You don’t have to tell me.”

If there was anything I liked about this boy, it was that he gave me privacy when I asked it. Haltingly, I moved back over, closing the recently made gap between us, to signal that he was forgiven. Bane jumped up, as if scalded, and went to the kitchen to get the pages of the magazine that were due to print tomorrow. For the rest of the night, we went over them for a final, unnecessary time.