Page 167 of Across His Line

I sit with the blanket over my knees, and it’s the strangest thing. Dylan was the biggest thing in my life. The biggest thing in that house. The thing I locked my door against and listened for at night and counted the exits around. He’s the reason why I don’t trust boys. And to these girls, he’s my family.

“He’s fine,” I say. “Where are you going to school?” I ask Emma.

She blinks, like she didn’t expect me to ask her anything.

“I’m taking a gap year,” she says, and her chin comes up a little. “I’m figuring out what I actually want to do before I waste a bunch of money on it.”

“That’s what she calls working four shifts a week at her aunt’s boutique,” Brianna says.

“Shut up.”

And everybody laughs. Even Emma. I only smile.

And something happens, right there, with the fire going and the guys yelling on the ice. Emma’s just a girl. A girl in a nice coat who works at her aunt’s store and doesn’t know what she wants and gets embarrassed when her friend says so out loud. Nineteen, like me. Figuring it out, like me. Not doing it as well as she wants people to think, like everybody else our age.

She isn’t the center table anymore. There isn’t a center table. There’s just a fire on a lake and some people sitting around it.

She never had as much power as I thought she did. That cafeteria just made everything in it look bigger than it was.

“Where are you?” Brianna asks me.

“Woodbury.”

“Oh, nice. For what?”

“Business.”

“She runs a business,” says a voice from behind me.

It’s Lucas, standing at the edge of the fire with his skates still on, steaming, holding a water bottle. I don’t know how he knows that. Rafe, I guess.

Emma looks at me. “You run a business?”

“I just resell stuff online,” I say. “Vintage. Thrift. That kind of thing.”

“Like, full-time?”

“Around school.”

She looks at me for a long second. I can see her thinking.

At some point, I look up at the ice.

Rafe’s looking at me. It’s a neutral look. He’s not coming over. He’s on the far side of the shoveled rink with his stick across his knees between plays, and he’s just looking and checking.

Lucas says something behind me, and Rafe looks up at him. Lucas is standing right behind my chair. I watch Rafe, wondering what he’s thinking. And then he takes the puck off Lucas’s brother.

Lucas asks us if we need anything. The girls say they’re fine.

Lucas says, “Tess?”

I smile when I look up at him. “Thanks, Lucas. I’m good.”

He nods. “Make a s’more.”

“I’m fine,” I nod. “Thank you.”

I sit by the fire, and when I look up, Rafe’s watching again. I smile at Lucas as he goes back, and I feel it go through me. Rafe’s eyes, the way he checked on me, and saw I was okay.