Taming My Bullies novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Ward

My hands shook so hard that it took three tries to open the biscuit tin.

I took out the little copper disc from under my mother's recipe cards.

It was dulled with age and polished at the edges from nine years of my thumb.

Rhys stood in my open doorway and did not come in.

I held my half up beside his.

His was the left side of the heron, mine was the right.

I set them together on my palm.

They fit, down to the tiny cut in the wing.

I couldn't speak.

"I was Ward that summer," Rhys said.

His voice was low and flat.

"It's my middle name. My mother used it at the lake."

"My father's rule was that a Montgomery doesn't advertise the family name, not even on a summer shore."

"The quiet boy," I whispered.

"That's me."

"You always stood at the edge. You never said anything. Sean did the talking."

"Sean did the talking," he agreed, with a dry smile.

"I was eleven and I stammered. It was the worst summer of my life."

"Then you came along and fell off a dock."

I remembered a pair of thin brown arms.

I remembered a voice saying *I've got you, don't kick, I've got you*, over and over, close against my ear.

I'd thought for nine years that it was Sean's voice.

"It was you," I said.

"I was fishing at the end of the dock. I saw you go in."

"I couldn't swim well, but I went in anyway."

"Sean came running with the towels and a grown man from the next cabin."

"Your mother was crying. She kept saying thank you, boys, which boy was it?"

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