Page 76 of Sparrow

I don’t like that they didn’t. And I don’t like the thought of sending her home to people who didn’t bother to bring her home themselves. It feels wrong, like we’re selling her out.

But if she’s sick...

I growl, turn the wheel to head further up the mountain, and try again to turn my brain off. I’ve been over all of this more times than I can count, and it doesn’t lead anywhere except back to the fact that Arden isn’t telling me the truth.

And for the first time, I actually need her to give up some of her secrets.

I kill the engine two blocks from the house and roll the bike into the driveway by hand, as I always do when I’ve been out for a night right. Mars and Arden have to be asleep by this time, and I don’t want to wake them. When I get in sight of the house, though, I see that there’s a light on. Not the porch light, but a lamp on the table near the door.

And next to it, I see a small form that I recognize. She’s got a blanket wrapped around her against the chill of the April night, and a book in her lap. She must have come out here to read, unable to sleep, but she’s stopped reading at some point and started watching the night.

Right now she’s looking up at the sky like she’s searching for answers in the stars above her head. She may have come out to the porch to read, but now she’s lost in thought, communing with the stars and moon above.

The sight of her shoots right through my body to my heart, and I nearly stagger. She looks at peace, but also fragile, like someone built her out of glass and then turned her over to a world that wasn’t going to be careful enough with her. Not weak, exactly, but breakable, like someone who’s spend her whole life pretending she’s okay and is now too tired to go on. Someone who’s protected herself from the outside world, but hasn’t been able to shelter herself as much as she needed to. Someone who’s never been understood, and is tired of standing alone.

I feel all of those things in my soul.

She might be a broken bird, but she’s never let that stop her. She still here fighting, trying to make the people around her feel happy and safe and seen.

She’s still shining her light out into the world, even as her own battery drains down toward empty.

I park the bike and walk slowly up onto the porch, trying to keep my boots quiet. She must know I’m here, but she doesn’t take her eyes from the stars above her, and up close, the image is even more breathtaking. The moonlight has turned her skin ivory and put deep shadows under her eyes, and I feel like I can see her skull through her skin.

See a dark fate waiting for her.

I sit down, using the movement to distract myself from that thought, and wait for her to say something. She doesn’t have any chocolate tonight, nothing but the book, and we sit in silence for several moments.

“I was waiting for you,” she says finally.

It’s exactly what she said that first night, when she sat up even though she didn’t know me, and I can’t stop the warmth that spreads through my body.

“Why?”

She finally turns to me, though her expression doesn’t change. “I heard you go out, and I knew you were upset. I thought you might need a friend. Maybe even some chocolate. Or whiskey. Or just one of those.”

The girl sees right through me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.

Because I do need a friend. I’ve been needing a friend since the day I was fucking born.

The thought cuts me so deep that when I speak, I’ve forgotten to put my filter on first. “I really just need someone to talk to.”

And, as usual, she doesn’t call me on the momentary mistake. Or the vulnerability.

“Well, I’m a person. I can listen. Some people say I’m pretty good at it.”

She pauses only a moment before she herself starts talking.

“I think everyone needs people to see them. Listen. One time when I was little, I went somewhere with my friends and they ended up leaving me there. I don’t think they meant to, but they couldn’t find me when it was time to go home, and they didn’t try for very long. Just drove away. I had to find my own way home. Made me realize you can never really depend on anyone else because the only person who really has you as their job is you.”

I try to parse through that story, garbled as it is, and when I finally catch the meaning in my hands, I realize that she’s speaking right to my soul.

Again.

“When I was twelve, I realized that my parents weren’t in it for me. They never wanted kids and had me by accident, and they never let me forget it. My mom loved me, but my dad... He was a hard man to grow up with. Nothing was every good enough for him, and he never got tired of showing me what a disappointment I was. One day, I got home, packed my things, and left. Figured that as long as I wasn’t going to be seen at home, I might as well go out into the world and find a place where I’d hold more substance. More color.”

“Did you find it?”

No, I think. I found a bunch of men who used me for a bunch of other things, beat me up for other reasons, and still told me I wasn’t worth anything.