Chapter 2 - Delaney

2

Delaney

Eleven Years Old

The bus drops me off at the end of the street. Nancy waves to me out the window and I wave back before I shrug on my backpack and turn to walk home. The old lady’s house is about halfway down the block and I could avoid it, walk back down the bus route and take the long way home.

But even though my gut twists at the thought of passing that house, I know I have to do it. I have to see if he’s real, or if I was just imagining him. Dreaming him. Like a nightmare.

My shoulder twinges.

That’s stupid. I know the difference between real and imagined, and the hand-shaped mark on my shoulder is definitely real. It still feels hot to the touch, more like a burn than a bruise.

He’s dangerous , I tell myself as my feet start towards home. He probably did something to the old lady. He was probably going to do the same thing to me.

I keep my eyes down, focusing on my sneakers as they slap against the pavement. I hear something up ahead — the loud clanking noise of metal on metal — and I already know it’s coming from the old lady’s house.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

The noise stops.

“Hey.”

I keep walking.

“Hey, kid!”

I stop. My palms are sweaty against the straps of my backpack. My eyes stay glued to my shoes.

“Fine. Whatever.”

That metal noise starts up again. I clench my eyes shut for a long moment, then take a deep breath. When I look up and across the street, I’m surprised. I don’t know what I expected to see exactly. Something scarier than… this.

The angry man sits cross-legged in his driveway beside a big, black motorbike. He has tools spread out all around him, and his brow is furrowed in concentration as he twists something on the bike with a wrench-kinda-thing.

He doesn’t look angry now. He doesn’t even really look like a man. He’s not as old as Daddy, or Nancy’s dad, or even my cousin Tyler, who just had a baby and is always complaining that he doesn’t have time for video games anymore.

There’s a tug in my belly, like a little thread coiling up, and it pulls me off the pavement and across the street. I stop at the end of the driveway.

The man’s eyes flick to me, then back to the bike. He puts down the wrench and wipes a hand over his face, leaving a grease mark on his forehead. His hair, a messy sort of dirty blond, falls back into place, covering the dark smudge.

He grabs another tool, but before he touches the bike, he stretches out one long leg and hisses. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt this time, both black, and the tattoos on his arms shine with sweat. The tattoos are of weird things — words and symbols, a boat anchor, a bird with a knife in its beak.

“I hate that,” I say suddenly.

The guy’s eyes flick up to me. I’m too far away to tell what color they are. For some reason, I really want to know. I edge a little closer.

“What?” he replies, still frowning. I think he’s annoyed. But he talked to me first. He yelled at me from across the street.

“When my leg or arm or whatever falls asleep,” I say. “And then you get pins and needles.”

He grunts, which is a pretty rude reply. He drops the tool and starts thumping at his leg with a closed fist, like he’s trying to wake it up.

“Got a fix for me, kid?”

I shrug. “Cut it off.”

The harsh slash of his mouth cracks, widening into a grin. “Yeah. Sure.”

The guy props his leg up, then heaves himself to standing. He bounces a couple of times on the balls of his feet, jiggling around the blood. He’s tall. Even taller than in the dark.

He doesn’t come any closer. Instead, he walks to the front porch and picks up a bottle of something. Soda.

For some reason, I’m glad it’s not beer.

“Did I hurt you?”

My eyes snap from the bottle hovering at his lips.

“Huh?”

He walks back to me and for a second I think he’s going to keep coming until he’s right in front of me — looming over me like he did in the shadows — but he doesn’t. He stops at the bike and takes another drink.

“Last night,” he says. He wipes his mouth with the back of his tattooed hand. “You just surprised me. I thought you were trying to break in or some shit.”

I shake my head and scuff the toe of my sneaker on the ground. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Lie. It still burns.

“So I did hurt you?” His eyebrows shoot up. “Fuck.”

I’ve never heard an adult swear so much not on accident and he’s cursed twice . My cheeks heat like I’m going to get in trouble, just for being within earshot.

“Where’s the old lady?” I ask, desperate to change the subject.

“You were looking for her, huh?”

He angles his body away from me and tosses the empty soda bottle into the air. Right before I think it’s going to smash on the pavement, he kicks out with his boot and rockets the thing into the street. The bottle is plastic; I hear it ping off the curb and it skitters into the gutter.

“You shouldn’t litter.”

“You shouldn’t sneak around people’s houses.”

Part of me wants to shrink away. I hear the angry edge to his voice and usually that’s followed by other stuff — stuff that hurts and leaves bruises. But today I’m surprisingly brave. Maybe it’s because he’s already marked me. He could have done a lot worse to me last night, but he didn’t.

I survived.

I purse my lips and prop my hands on my hips.

“This isn’t your house. It’s hers.”

“S’mine, now,” he says with a shrug. “She gave it to me.”

“No, she didn’t.”

He huffs and arcs one of his sandy eyebrows. “I’m not playing this game with you, kid. Get outta here. Go home before someone calls the cops.”

My stomach lurches. He wouldn’t call the cops on me. Would he? I stumble back and I think my face must go pale or something, because he frowns like he’s worried about me.

I go back across the street. My front door is so close. Just one more house down. I can see the driveway from here and it’s empty — both Mama and Daddy are gone, even though Mama still doesn’t have a day job yet.

I feel that tug again, the one deep in my belly, and it forces me to turn back to the guy at the old lady’s house.

He’s still watching me, hands planted on his hips.

I have to know. I don’t know why… I just have to.

“Is she dead?”

A few seconds pass. The guy looks around, up and down the street, and then he jogs over to me. I stumble back, onto Mrs. Ullmer’s front grass (even though she yells at everyone who walks on it).

“Shit,” the guy mumbles, almost to himself, and he takes a big step back. He bends down on one knee. His frown is even deeper. Why the heck is he so worried?

“She’s not dead, kid,” he says. “She moved to a retirement home down south. She’s my grandma.”

“Oh.”

Retirement home. Yeah. That makes sense. More sense than her lying dead under a stack of old newspapers.

“What’s your name? She never said she had a little friend.”

“She doesn’t,” I reply sharply, a bit offended at being called little. “I don’t talk to strangers.”

“We’re not strangers?” He looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“I… This is different,” I say with a sigh. “I had to make sure.”

“That she wasn’t dead.”

“Right.”

I’ve been out here too long. Someone should be home soon. I want to get inside. Away from the old lady’s house. Away from him.

He cocks his head to the side. “What’s your name?”

I clamp my lips shut.

“S’cool. You don’t have to tell me,” he says, shaking his head. His hair flops in front of his eyes and he pushes it back.

If he didn’t have all those tattoos, he could be in magazines. Nancy has a poster in her locker of a bunch of guys with surfboards at the beach. I can only glance at it before I feel my cheeks get too hot. It’s so embarrassing . Why would she want to see a bunch of shirtless guys every time she opens her locker? And why am I even thinking about that right now?

“I was just going to tell my grandma about you when I call her. Tell her someone misses her.”

“Oh.” I kick at the pavement. It feels rude now, not to tell him my name. And I kinda wouldn’t mind finding out how his grandma is doing. If she’s planted another garden at her retirement home. It probably wouldn’t be as nice as this one was.

“Delaney,” I say finally.

“Hi, Delaney. My name’s Airy.”

I scrunch up my nose. That’s a name?

“Airy?” I ask, trying not to laugh. “Like… the air?”

He laughs. It’s the kind of laugh that’s bright and warm. Not mean and sharp, like the way Daddy laughs. Or some of the kids at school.

The guy — Airy, I guess? — digs in his back pocket. He pulls out a marker and motions with his fingers. I don’t know why, but I hold out my arm to him.

Strong fingers wrap around my wrist and hold my arm steady. He bites off the cap of the marker and writes in heavy block letters on my arm: A R E S .

“Oh,” I say, surprised. I pull my arm back and run my fingers alongside the letters, careful not to smudge them. He puts the cap back on the pen. “I’ve never heard that name before.”

“Google it,” he says as he stands. “It’s interesting stuff.”

He waves with two fingers, like he’s saluting or something, and smiles.

“See ya round, Delaney.”

He’s back on his side of the street before I think to speak.

“Bye, Ares.”

I go home, feeling weirdly lighter. I tell myself that I feel happy that the old lady isn’t dead, but I also kind of think I feel like this because of him.

Ares.

The first thing I do when I get home is change into a long sleeved shirt so Mama won’t see the marker on my arm and make me wash it off. I lie on my bed and stare at his name on my arm for a long time, running my fingers over the now-dry ink.

My skin hums.