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She had the sudden childish impulse to shut her eyes, as if that would make him disappear, but she couldn’t look away from him
“Alan,” Mae said, her voice breaking “Don’t”
“After my dad died, I looked everywhere for someone to love me I used to sit on the bus and watch people, see if they looked kind, try to make them smile at me I had a hundred drea me” Alan’s voice was low, but he didn’t falter He reached out and touched her hair, very gently, pushing it behind her ear “Of all the girls I ever saw,” he said, “I dreamed of you the most”
He leaned in then, when she was fighting the stupid, unreasonable impulse to cry, and kissed her His mouth arm, and she moved into the kiss instinctively
It wasn’t a deep kiss, but she found herself clinging to it, following his war
“Mae,” Alan said, “will you go out within his haste “Could you tell me on Saturday?”
Friday was the night of the Goblin Market
“After all,” he said, his , sweet and sad and a little rueful, “if you’re right and I do die on Friday … I’ to be scared It would ht say yes”
It felt horribly, dangerously te to be wanted Mae didn’t knohat she would say on Saturday
She knew that on Friday, she was not going to let either of them die
“I didn’t think Alan would really go through with it,” Jamie said
He and Mae were sitting on the front steps of their house the next one, and about Alan asking her out She had her hands clasped tight between her knees Ja his nose into a vast red rose cli the trellis
There was a bee in it Ja if he wasn’t careful
“I knohat Nick did was terrible,” Jamie went on, his voice sht he would be, no matter what”
Mae wondered when exactly Jaiance had shifted so decisively from one brother to the other She could rely on Alan’s side no matter what the situation
Nick kept taking things away fro to
“Maybe he’s tired of always being on Nick’s side,” Mae said “It is kind of ruining his life, so far”
Jamie studied the depths of his rose “I know you don’t believeover the na to hurt Alan or Nick But—but I wish Alan wasn’t doing it, all the sary”
Mae had left out the s to lead against the icians She did not think Ja eliminated
She also thought that if she could pull the wool over Ja the same
When Jamie knew that Gerald would have killed the He would
“I know,” Mae said “But I think—what the hell?”
She ju up their driveway toward the at the sa behind hinize hi or old, just knew fro Her first thought was that this was an attack
Her second thought was that it was Nick, and he knew the truth
It was Seb
He ca, his eyes wide and wild and wet He’d been crying, Mae thought with a feeling of intense shock Seb, who acted so tough at school, who didn’t even like being seen with his sketchbook
For a , as if he was dazed, as if he’d been running blind and was amazed to find hi at Jamie
“I don’t want to do it again,” he said His voice cracked on “again,” and he sounded sixteen for the first time since Mae had known him
“Do what again?” Mae asked warily
“Hey,” said Jamie, the soft touch “Are you—are you okay?”
Seb took another step and then another, still wavering in a way that ful to watch, like so on knives, and then tumbled forward on his hands and knees with his head in Jamie’s lap
“Uh,” Ja to take that as a no”
He was Jah, sweet to the bone, and after a moment he dealt with this exactly as Mae would have predicted, if she’d ever iined that someone would coan, a little hesitantly, to smooth back Seb’s ruffled brown hair
Seb’s shoulders heaved up and down convulsively
“I didn’t—” he said in a choked voice “I didn’t want to”
“No, no, of course not,” Ja a look at Mae The look said, very specifically, What is he talking about? and Help!
Mae shrugged
“I was committed,” Seb said “Laura said I was I had to be I didn’t have anywhere else to go”
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She had the sudden childish impulse to shut her eyes, as if that would make him disappear, but she couldn’t look away from him
“Alan,” Mae said, her voice breaking “Don’t”
“After my dad died, I looked everywhere for someone to love me I used to sit on the bus and watch people, see if they looked kind, try to make them smile at me I had a hundred drea me” Alan’s voice was low, but he didn’t falter He reached out and touched her hair, very gently, pushing it behind her ear “Of all the girls I ever saw,” he said, “I dreamed of you the most”
He leaned in then, when she was fighting the stupid, unreasonable impulse to cry, and kissed her His mouth arm, and she moved into the kiss instinctively
It wasn’t a deep kiss, but she found herself clinging to it, following his war
“Mae,” Alan said, “will you go out within his haste “Could you tell me on Saturday?”
Friday was the night of the Goblin Market
“After all,” he said, his , sweet and sad and a little rueful, “if you’re right and I do die on Friday … I’ to be scared It would ht say yes”
It felt horribly, dangerously te to be wanted Mae didn’t knohat she would say on Saturday
She knew that on Friday, she was not going to let either of them die
“I didn’t think Alan would really go through with it,” Jamie said
He and Mae were sitting on the front steps of their house the next one, and about Alan asking her out She had her hands clasped tight between her knees Ja his nose into a vast red rose cli the trellis
There was a bee in it Ja if he wasn’t careful
“I knohat Nick did was terrible,” Jamie went on, his voice sht he would be, no matter what”
Mae wondered when exactly Jaiance had shifted so decisively from one brother to the other She could rely on Alan’s side no matter what the situation
Nick kept taking things away fro to
“Maybe he’s tired of always being on Nick’s side,” Mae said “It is kind of ruining his life, so far”
Jamie studied the depths of his rose “I know you don’t believeover the na to hurt Alan or Nick But—but I wish Alan wasn’t doing it, all the sary”
Mae had left out the s to lead against the icians She did not think Ja eliminated
She also thought that if she could pull the wool over Ja the same