“Later,” he said, and he leaned forward on the bike, pushing off, freewheeling down the hill. I couldn’t see him but only heard the sound of the tires picking up speed. I walked fast. As I turned onto my street, I heard the Yamaha engine kick and accelerate, a sound muffled and remote as it moved into the distance.

My house was dark. At the end of the driveway, I chewed a stick of Wrigley’s gum. I smelled like beer. I tried the back door, and the knob turned. Unlocked. Thomas had left it open for me. It meant she wasn’t at home; she would have locked it. I moved through the rec room and opened the door into the garage. There was just emptiness where the shape of the car should be. In the kitchen, I flicked the light on for a second; the clock over the sink read 1:10. In our room, I stepped out of my Converse and climbed over Beatrice into bed.

I lay on my side, facing the wall. Everything was confusing. Jack was embarrassed by what had happened, but was he also somehow jealous of Wilson? I thought I hated Wilson, but I had defended him to Jack. Sage had called Wilson and never told me. She had his unlisted number. She knew I didn’t want him involved, that I had wanted him to get away from us. Why were they talking so much? There was something else I couldn’t place. A realization I was trying to grasp. Thomas had told me once that this feeling, like a sixth sense, wasn’t ESP or any of that pseudoscience crap. It was another part of the sympathetic nervous system’s fight-or-flight response. It happened, he’d said, when your body knew something before your head. If you were an animal in the jungle and there was a crack of a twig or a movement in the bush, your body would perceive those things and react before your head had even processed them. It was how you survived. Like when there’s danger and your body senses it and you have a gut feeling or a bad feeling before your head understands what it is. Your body is hearing, smelling, sensing, and your instinct, based on real information, gives you the feeling you should have. Lying in bed, thinking about the night, was when this other thing took a shape I could understand. Even though I was alone in my bed in the dark, I covered my mouth with my hand. I understood now about Mrs. Boucher.

21

Thomas had helped Beatrice pull suitcases down from the attic. Beatrice was leaving the following morning for camp, and she was choosing which one would best hold her things.