Emily laughed, but it sounded hollow, as though more than her body was ailing.
“What happened to you in Egypt?” He sounded as disgusted as he felt.
“The Sudan.”
“What?”
“Not Egypt this time. Too much political turmoil right now. Country’s torn apart. I was in the Sudan.”
“What happened?”
She didn’t answer and he glanced at her, but the country road was too dark. “Are you crying?”
“Nope,” she said, but the thickness in her voice betrayed her.
“Was it that boyfriend of yours? What did he do?”
“Screwed me over.” A bitter laugh barked out of her, but she said nothing else.
He didn’t want to know more, didn’t want to hear another word about the guy.
Out of the silence, Emily’s voice floated like a disembodied ghost. “I hit rock bottom.”
CHAPTER THREE
AIYANA PEARCE CREPT past the living room where her grandfather dozed in the flowered armchair.
Dad would hit the roof if he knew she was going out without his permission, but what Dad wanted didn’t matter. He wasn’t home, was he?
She couldn’t help being bitter. Dad used to be home in the evenings with her and Mika, but now he was usually at the Heritage Center, and then when he finally came home all he did was study for his college courses. He wanted to be an architect.
Dad said a person should have ambitions.
Gramps snored and Aiyana glanced at him. Gramps didn’t have ambitions, hadn’t even finished high school, but people still loved him anyway, didn’t they?
Having justified her defiance, Aiyana stepped outside and closed the door slowly. She was careful. There was no way Grandpa would hear the click of the lock catching.
Bypassing the creaky third step, she ran down the walkway to the street. The cool breeze took her by surprise and she zipped up her jacket. The air smelled like rain.
A sharp whistle from a couple of houses down caught her attention. Justin! Her heart rattled in her chest like a baby bird flapping its wings.
She raced toward the sound but squealed when he jumped out from behind a tree and wrapped his arms around her. “Did I scare you?”
“Yes.” She gasped and caught her breath. She smacked her boyfriend’s arm, but couldn’t be mad at him for long. Boyfriend. She liked the sound of that. Yesterday, he’d said he was hers and had invited her out tonight for the first time. Hers, he’d said, forever and ever.
Justin White, the most popular boy in school, wanted her for his girlfriend. How cool was that?
He wanted to keep it a secret, even though she wanted to shout it to the whole world. He said it felt good that it was their special news, only theirs, and they should hang on to it for a while.
Under the streetlight, his hair shone like gold. His blue eyes filled with humor. Grandpa would call it the devil’s mischief, but Aiyana knew Justin wasn’t like that. He was a good guy. Everyone at school liked him. And he belonged to her!
He threaded his fingers through hers, his palm warm and callused from shooting hoops for a couple of hours every day after school. Holding hands felt good.
She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was following her. Good. Grandpa was still asleep.
Dad thought she was too young to see boys, maybe because Mom got pregnant with Aiyana when she was a teenager. Mom and Dad had to get married.
But Aiyana was too smart for that to happen to her. Dad should learn to trust her. For Pete’s sake, in a few days, she would turn sixteen. Of course she was old enough to date. All the kids at school did.
Justin urged her toward the end of Marshall Avenue. “Come on.”
“Where to?”
When he smiled, one side of his mouth hiked up higher than the other. She liked his lips. “You’ll see.”
He led her to the path that went down into the ravine. She never went down there this close to nightfall. The wind had picked up and the sky was getting dark. She shivered and Justin wrapped his arm around her. “Cold, babe?”
Her heart hammered. “Why are we going down here?” Even to her own ears, even trying as hard as she could to sound sixteen already, her giggle sounded shaky.
“Someplace private,” Justin said, and the word both thrilled and scared her.
“I thought we were going for ice cream.”
“We are. After.”
“After what?”
“I made something special for you.” Special. Just for her.
They stumbled to the bottom of the ravine, where he stopped and pointed. “Look.”
In a hollow created by a boulder at the back and large old trees on either side, Justin had fashioned a makeshift tent of sorts. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A cubbyhole? Just a private spot? He’d stretched a piece of canvas five feet above the ground between the two trees. On the ground he’d covered a plastic sheet with a blanket with a vaguely Native American pattern. It didn’t look like Dad’s blankets at home.
An overturned milk crate had a bunch of stuff on top of it.
“I made this for us,” he said. “No one else knows about it.”
She would rather have gone out for ice cream than sit in the woods when it was getting dark, but Justin looked so proud of himself, she smiled.
Crawling in on her hands and knees, she noticed that he had everything—candles, a flashlight, potato chips—and beer. She didn’t drink. She’d already told him that yesterday.
The place smelled like dead leaves and damp earth, but at least the tarp overhead cut the wind.
He crawled in behind her and pulled the tab on a can of beer then sipped the foam that bubbled out. “It’s warm.” He shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, handing her the can.
“I don’t drink, Justin.”
“I know, but it’s only one beer. No biggie.”
She sipped it but hated the taste. That put it mildly. He was right. It was warm and tasted like crap. When she handed the can back to him, he guzzled half the contents then belched.
She sat on the blanket not really knowing what to do with her hands or where to put her legs. The space was cozy and her knees kept bumping Justin’s thigh.
Every time they did, it felt as if electricity shot through her. She fidgeted.
“Relax,” he said, reclining onto the pillows at the back of the tent. They looked as if they belonged on somebody’s sofa.
He took her arm and urged her down beside him. She resisted, but his grip was strong. “Easy. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to keep you warm.”
She settled her head on his shoulder. It was solid and warm and felt nice.
He unzipped her jacket. When she tensed, he said, “I want see that necklace you always wear. What is the design? Does it have significance in your culture?” he asked, taking it between two fingers.
She was having trouble breathing. His heavy arm rested between her breasts. No boy had ever touched her there. He was strong. An athlete. A basketball player. He said Coach made them lift weights to keep fit.
“It was my mother’s necklace,” she finally answered when she