Chapter 9: Blackout

The storm hit on Thursday night, the one night I had the house with Dane alone.

Rory was in Columbus at a baseball tournament until Sunday.

Their father's cargo flight had been grounded in Memphis, so the pilot was stuck in a hotel and the rest of us were stuck in the dark.

The power went out at eleven.

I was standing at the top of the stairs with my phone flashlight when the whole house clicked off at once.

Thunder rolled across the roof.

I went down for water because I couldn't sleep anyway.

I had not spoken to Dane since the social.

He had not said a word to me at breakfast on Thursday, and he had eaten dinner in his room.

Now there was a candle burning in the kitchen.

He sat at the table in the glow of it, in a black T-shirt, doing the crossword with a pen.

He did not look up.

"You're up," he said.

"The storm."

"It'll pass."

I filled a glass at the sink and stood there holding it.

I was wearing the gray sweatshirt I had found in the dryer on my first morning, and I had worn it every night since.

His eyes lifted, found the sleeve, and dropped back to the paper.

"That's mine," he said.

"It was in the dryer."

"Keep it."

I sat down across from him, because the alternative was going upstairs.

"It was a stunt," I said. "The kiss at the social. It was supposed to be for Lacey."

"It's not my business."

"I know it isn't. I'm just telling you."

He wrote a word in the squares, in black ink, and did not answer.

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