Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
I watch as the boy runs to his mother.
He talks with his whole body when he’s proud of himself. I’ve watched enough of his practices to know it’s about a kick. His mother laughs at nearly everything he says, the sound open and unguarded.
I keep to the woods, where the pines grow close enough that the evening light never quite reaches the ground beneath them. Standing here, I’m just another shadow among shadows.
I watch this boy and let myself want the thing I’ve been circling for days now.
Not yet, I remind myself. There’s a shape to this, a rhythm. Rushing it has never once served me well. Patience is the only real gift I have left to give myself.
The man on the bleachers straightens.
I go still. He’s turned and is scanning the field with the unhurried thoroughness of someone who’s done this before. The man studies the parents packing up their chairs, the emptying field, the woods.
His eyes pass over me and keep moving.
I don’t breathe until they do.
He could be a real threat. I clocked that the first time I saw him cross the yard toward the Loveless house. He definitely complicates things. I don’t like complications, but I’ve survived worse.
The boy climbs into his mother’s car, gear bag still half-open, chattering the whole way.
I let myself imagine, for a moment, the version of this where I simply walk down there—just another parent gathering a child at the end of practice, ordinary and unremarkable and entirely unafraid.
I like that version of myself. Could I fool everyone?
I could, I realize. I’m certain I could.