Chapter 14: The Childhood Bed

The guest room was at the front of the house, and Cass had the couch.

Her mother had said goodnight to us all at eleven with a hand on each of our cheeks.

At midnight I was standing in a pink bedroom in the dark, with the door shut behind me.

The Anand house was a brick ranch in Allandale with a live oak in the yard.

Priya's room was still the room of a girl who had won every ribbon and never broken a rule.

There were swim trophies on a shelf, a corkboard of ticket stubs, and a twin bed under a quilt with faded stars.

Priya sat on the edge of it in a thin white nightshirt, with her glasses on and her knees together.

"You came," she whispered.

"You told me to."

"My father's room is on the other side of that wall."

"I know."

"If I make a sound, he'll hear."

"Then don't make a sound."

I crossed the carpet in my socks.

I took her glasses off and set them on the nightstand, next to a stack of cookbooks.

She looked up at me, blind and trusting and already breathing hard.

"Lie back."

She lay down on the narrow bed, and the springs gave one tiny squeak.

We both froze.

Down the hall, a toilet flushed, and a door closed, and the house went quiet again.

I knelt on the edge of the mattress and put a hand flat on her stomach, over the cotton.

"Priya."

"Yes."

"Hands above your head. Hold the headboard."

She reached up and wrapped her fingers around the white slats.

"And keep them there."

"Yes, Jo."

I pushed the nightshirt up to her ribs.

She wore nothing under it, and her whole body was pale gold in the streetlight through the blinds, soft belly, full thighs.

The dark triangle between them already wet.

I lay down beside her on my side, with my head propped on my fist, and I looked.

"You're staring."

"I'm learning you."

"You've learned me."

"Not like this. Not in the dark, in a bed built for a ten-year-old, trying not to breathe."

She made a very small sound in her throat.

I laid two fingers on her mouth.

"That one counts."

She bit her lip.

I drew my hand down her chin, over the pulse in her neck, and between her breasts, slowly, so slowly that she began to shake.

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