Page 55 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

“I see what you did there.” His shoulders shook in a shallow huff of laughter.

Sudden anger made her launch herself from the wall. “Just go home. Sober up. Find your wife.”

“Where’s your boyfriend?” There was a barb in his words.

“Far from here, thank God.” She was glad Samuel hadn’t witnessed this scene. It would horrify him, the cruelty the three of them were capable of. She began to turn away.

Quick as anything, Wayland’s hand wrapped around her wrist. He pulled her back and spun her around so she was facing him. His cigarette fell among the piles of trash, forgotten. In the dim light, she saw the way his eyes glittered, a quick flame of possibility.

“Why do you think she did it?Clio?” Wayland’s tone was that of a professor, patiently leading cow-eyed students to the obvious conclusion.

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

“Let me go.”

“I think she always understood how it was.” He leaned down toward her. “Don’t you?”

She became too aware of her neck, her jaw, the glitching of her pulse.

Wayland said, “That day by the creek. When we were seventeen. When you let me play Seekers.”

Reluctantly, Vivi filled in the story. “It was the first time we let you come. You begged.”

“I was the seeker. I cheated and followed you. You hid poorly, like you wanted me to find you.”

“I didn’t.” The lie rattled loosely in her mouth.

“Then I kissed you and you kissed me back. But Calla found us.”

“She was upset, she ran away. She fell in the creek, banged her head on the rocks. Four stitches.” Vivi felt dazed, as if she were writing a story aloud with him. A story with an inevitable end.

“That was when you stopped being my best friend.” The snake tattoo along his neck stretched as he lifted his head, forcing his gaze on her. “When you gave up on us.”

“She loved you.”

“I know. But I loved you first. I should have told you then. That day. All the days after. You loved me too.”

“Adolescent love. Puppy love.”

“We’ll never know, will we?”

“No.”

Then his mouth was on hers, breath hot and reeking of Scotch. Hands trailing up her waist, a heady continuation of their first and only kiss in the woods. At that moment, Vivi did not think of her tearful sister or the shocked crowd inside of the gallery. Samuel, even, occupied a different space in her heart. There was only Wayland, the neighbor boy who’d first seen her.

For a moment, just one moment, she wrapped her hands around his head and pulled him closer.This. This was the air she’d been seeking.

“It should have been us,” he murmured into her lips.

At that, something broke through the fog of her want, and she twisted away, shoving him into the brick. The aftertaste of the kiss was sour. It was all wrong.

There was a twitch of movement from the front of the alleyway. Whenshe turned, it was gone. A yellow cab whizzed by, its roof sign flickering. Free. Not free.

Wayland gave a hiss of frustration as Vivi ran down the alleyway. He was yelling her name, howling it, with a plea that wrung her chest dry.

The next day, he texted her.Please don’t tell her. I didn’t mean any of it.