Chapter 22: What I Want

Byron's POV

I held the pencil for a long time and wrote nothing.

The lantern had burned low.

Denton was asleep on his back with one arm flung over his eyes.

Tucker was asleep on his side with his face pressed into the quilt.

Roxy sat cross-legged between us in my old t-shirt, with the notebook open on her knee, and waited.

She did not say, hurry.

She did not say anything.

For eight months I had written to her in the dark, in secret, and she had never once been able to answer.

Now she sat three feet away with her eyes open, and I could not make my hand move.

"I don't know how to want out loud," I said.

"Then do it small," she said. "One line."

I bent over the page.

The pencil shook, and I made it stop.

I wrote the first thing in block capitals, because those were the only letters I trusted.

I WANT YOU IN MY BED EVERY NIGHT, WITH THE DOOR OPEN.

I looked at it.

It was true, and it was not enough, and she was watching me read it.

I wrote under it.

I WANT EVERYTHING I WROTE ABOUT YOU IN THIS BOOK TO BE SAID OUT LOUD IN THE KITCHEN WHERE EVERYONE CAN HEAR.

I wrote another.

I WANT YOU TO HAVE THE BOATHOUSE, AND THE SKIFF, AND HALF THE YARD, WITH YOUR NAME ON THE PAPER.

"Byron," she said.

"Let me finish."

I wrote the last one slowly.

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