Page 56 of Haunted

“I’ve been driving him,” I say. “And I’ll keep driving him until we can get him to the DMV.”

Van Hoek looks at Jonny, then at me. “Good. It’s always useful to have friends with that much presence of mind.” She lets herself out.

I bolt the door behind her.

Then I stand to one side of the window and look at the street for longer than there’s any reason to. The fog has burned off. There are two students, a delivery van, and nobody standing anywhere they have no business standing.

Three hundred yards. Fog. And a man who stood in my doorway two nights ago and told me I’d regret it, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes you see him in every jogger in the county. I have been running that argument since eight o’clock this morning and it hasn’t improved with practice.

I don’t say anything about it to Jonny. He’s had enough of a day.

The apartment is very quiet.

He’s staring at his palms.

I sit down across from him and look at his hands myself. The splinters are still in there—at least three in his right palm, one of them burrowed so deep the skin has closed over it. He’s been sitting with these for hours.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I say. I want to make it tender, but I can’t. Not now. It hurts too much to try. I go to the bathroom and get a pair of tweezers from the medicine cabinet. “Give me your hand,” I say.

“I can do it.” He takes them and starts working the splinters out of his left hand, setting the long shards of wood onto a saucer I give him.

It’s only when he puts the tweezers into his left hand that I have to intervene. His fingers won’t cooperate—the angle is wrong and his grip keeps slipping. He puts the tweezers down and flexes his hand.

I pick them up before he can try again. “It’s been a long morning and I can’t watch this.”

He looks at me for a second, then extends his right hand, palm up. “Thank you,” he says. Just that.

I work on the first two splinters, which come out cleanly. The third one needs a needle to get through the skin tissue. He doesn’t flinch. I marvel at the dexterity of his fingers—these are the fingers that I remember sketching me from the corner of a classroom. I wonder if he still does that.

I turn to inspect his left hand and find two more splinters he missed. I pull them out silently and put peroxide on them.

“I could have done that myself.”

“Why didn’t you, then?” I ask.

“I wanted to do it when I was at home. That way I wouldn’t inconvenience you.” He tucks the hand against his chest with the cuff pulled down over the heel of it and waits for me to hand over the tweezers.

Inconvenience me. I grit my teeth so hard I’m surprised they don’t shatter.

I nod. “You should eat. I’ve got leftover chicken, some frozen dinners, and half a burrito.”

“Nothing.” He pauses. “But thank you. I think I should go,” he says, standing smoothly. “Take a shower. Get into my own clothes.” He glances out the window at his aunt’s apartment. “You can practically see into my bedroom from this angle, I’ll bet.” He smiles like it’s a joke. I don’t tell him how much I’ve seen from that window.

“Wait,” I say, before he can stand. “Are you angry at me for saying I’d drive you?”

He peers at me, surprised. “Does it matter?”

“To me.”

He hesitates. “I’m not angry. But I wish you’d stop treating people like they can’t sort out their own problems.”

“It’s not all people. It’s kind of a you thing.”

“Why? How can you be a sane person with everybody else and so overbearing with me?”

“I want to—” I trail off.

“You want to what?”