Chapter 23: The Long Night

We moved into the big house on a Sunday, with four boxes and a stuffed fox.

By nine that night Linus was asleep in the room with the blue quilt, two doors down the hall.

Hattie had read him three chapters of a book about a wizard.

Then she had taken herself off to bed, with a look at me that said she knew exactly what she was doing.

The house settled around us, quiet and warm.

I stood in the doorway of Abel's room in my nightgown.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his shirt open and a lamp on, reading nothing.

"I don't know what to do with my hands," he said.

"I have a suggestion."

I closed the door, and I turned the key.

It clicked loudly in the quiet.

He stood up.

We had not been alone like this since the night above the garage.

So much had happened since then that I felt shy.

He saw it, and he didn't hurry.

He crossed the room and slid his fingers into my hair, and tipped my face up.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello."

He kissed me slowly.

His mouth was warm, and he tasted of mint tea.

I pushed his shirt off his shoulders, and he lifted my nightgown over my head, and then there was nothing between us but lamplight.

"Leave it on," I said, when he reached for the switch.

His hand stilled on the lamp.

"I want you to look at me."

He did.

His eyes went slowly down the long ridge of the scar, and the three on my thigh, and back up to my face.

"You're beautiful," he said, in a rough, plain voice. "It's the stupidest word, and I mean it as hard as I can."

I took his hand and put it on my hip, right where the scar ended.

"Then touch me like it."

He laid me back on the bed.

He kissed my mouth, and my throat, and the hollow under my ear.

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