Page 65 of Little Pieces of Light

Dear Diary,

The first thing you should know about me, since we’re going to be friends, is that my name is Violet McNamara, and I’m thirteen years old.

Today is my birthday, and you are one of my presents.

Mom gave you to me because I’m on the “cusp of womanhood”—insert major eye roll—and said I might want to write down my emotions.

She says they’re bound to get “dramatic” at this age, and writing them out can help keep them from burrowing deep and then spewing out later.

That’s ironic. Lately, she and Dad have been spewing out their dramatic emotions, screaming constantly at each other.

Maybe they need a diary too. Maybe that’s what I’ll get them for their anniversary next month.

If they make it that far. I don’t know what happened.

We were all so happy, and then it started to dissolve, piece by piece.

God, they’re screaming right now. This house is huge, yet they fill it up with their rage. Where did it come from??? Makes my stomach feel weird, and I just want it to stop.

Happy birthday to me.

I set my pen down and put my headphones on.

Absofacto blared in my ears, drowning out Mom’s and Dad’s raised voices.

A shattering of glass broke through my music.

I flinched, my heart jumping in my chest, and a teardrop smeared the ink on my first diary entry.

I carefully dabbed it away, turned up the music, and waited for the storm to pass.

They’re done now, but God, one of them smashed something. Mom probably. That’s the second time that’s happened. Things are getting worse. Just two weeks ago, they were still sleeping in the same bed, and now Mom’s taken over the bedroom and Dad’s in the den.

Maybe it’s a phase. Maybe if I work hard enough and make them proud of me, they’ll be happy again, and everything can go back to the way it was. I’m going to be a doctor. A surgeon. Someone who puts broken things back together. Maybe I’ll start with them, ha ha.

Anyway, I don’t want to write more about what’s happening to this family. I’ll write about something better. Namely, River Whitmore. 3

It’s probably every cliché multiplied by a million to fill a diary with thoughts about boys, but I’ve had a crush on River since forever.

But if you saw him, Diary, you’d understand.

He’s like a thirteen-year-old Henry Cavill, only not British.

You can tell he’s going to be big and muscular and sexy when he’s older. (OMG I can’t believe I wrote that!)

ANYWAY, his dad owns Whitmore’s Auto Body shop, and River helps out there in the summer.

When Dad takes the Jag in for any work, I tag along, even though I always clam up around River.

Another cliché: the nerdy girl and the popular jock who doesn’t know she exists.

He’s a star football player who’s going to keep playing quarterback all through high school and then in college, or maybe he’ll go straight to the NFL.

That’s what his dad is always saying, anyway.

As for me, UCSC is my dream school. Santa Cruz is so beautiful.

I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’ll eventually have to leave for med school, of course, which will be hard since specializing in general surgery means years of study.

And a crap ton of student loan debt. But get this: for my last birthday, Mom and Dad said they’d pay for all of it! !!

I was over-the-moon happy when they told me. Grateful beyond words and glad because I could stay close to them. Only now it feels like our happy life was temporary, and it’s all falling apart. I don’t know what happened to them. Something money-related, I think. (See? Money can really suck.)

Anyway, I~

My pen scratched at the paper as a sudden silence jarred me.

There was a trellis on the wall outside my second-story bedroom, and a bunch of frogs that lived in the leafy vines had just gone quiet.

Sometimes, I’d imagine River Whitmore climbing the trellis to rescue me from my parents and their disintegrating marriage, but it would also make a perfect ladder for an intruder.

I snapped off my desk lamp and sank back into the darkness of my room, breath held.

Slowly, the frogs started up again.

I pushed my glasses higher up on my nose and looked out my window over the darkened Pogonip forest of redwood and oak that bordered our backyard, then leaned over my desk and peered down.

There was a kid. A boy.

He looked about my age, though it was hard to tell only by the light of the moon hanging fatly in the sky.

He had longish brown hair, and his shoulders were hunched into a dark jacket.

The boy paced a small circle in frustration, as if he’d come to a dead end—my house—and didn’t know where else to go.

I glanced at my clock; it was nearly ten.

Why is he out here? Alone?

The boy slumped against the wall beneath me, next to one of the coiled hoses hanging off its faucet. The frogs went quiet again as he slid down to sit on his butt. He drew his legs up, dangled his wrists off his bent knees, and hung his head. I wondered if he was going to sleep like that.

I ran my tongue over my braces, thinking. Should I call Dad? The police? But that would get the boy in trouble, and he looked like he was already having a crappy day.

I lifted my window, and warm June air wafted in. Wood scraped wood, and the boy’s head shot up. Moonlight fell over his face, and I sucked in a little breath.

He’s beautiful.

What a random, silly thought. Boys aren’t beautiful . None that I knew. Not even River, who was more dashingly handsome. Before I could debate this issue with myself further, the boy scrambled to his feet, ready to run.

“Wait, don’t go!” I called in a hissing whisper, shocking him and myself in the process. I don’t know what prompted me to stop him or why. It just popped out, like I couldn’t help myself. Like it’d be a mistake to let him go.

The boy stopped at the edge of the boundary where the path became forest. I lifted the sash higher so I could lean over and rest my arms on the sill.

“What are you doing out here?” I whisper-shouted.

“Nothing.”

“You came out of the woods?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, it’s trespassing for one. This is private property. You shouldn’t be here.”

They were always saying that on TV. Sounded good then.

The boy scowled. “You just told me not to go.”

“Because I wondered what the heck you were doing. It’s late.”

“I was just…taking a walk.”

“Where do you live?”

“Nowhere. I don’t know. Someone’s going to hear us.”

“Nah. Our neighbors are pretty far.” I sucked on my braces again. “But this whispering sucks. I’ll come down.”

“Why?”

“To talk better,” I said and wondered if turning thirteen had magically erased some of my shyness.

Or maybe it’s just this boy.

“You don’t know me,” he said. “I could be dangerous.”

“Are you?”

He thought for a second. “Maybe.”

I pursed my lips. “Are you going to hurt me if I come down there?”

“ No ,” he said, irritated. “But you shouldn’t be taking chances.”

“Just stay put.”

I was in my pajamas—leggings with a slouchy UCSC sweatshirt over them. I grabbed my Converse shoes from the closet of my super neat room and slipped them over my socks.

I stuck my head out the window again. The boy was still there.

“Be right down.”

I sounded as if I climbed down the trellis on the regular. I wasn’t the sneaking-out-at-night type of kid, but I was surprising myself right and left that night. I tucked my dark hair out of my way, climbed up onto my desk, and then stuck one foot out onto the ledge.

“Don’t,” the boy said from below. “You’re gonna fall.”

“I will not,” I said and carefully found my grip on the inside of the window ledge with my hands while my right foot snaked out for a rung on the trellis.

“How do you know it’ll hold?” the boy called up.

I had no idea if it would hold, but I’d already left the safety of the window ledge for the thinner, wooden crisscrosses of the trellis.

I brushed vines out of my way and climbed slowly down, making sure to take my time, to find each foothold.

Then I plopped to the ground and dusted my hands together.

“See? Stronger than it looks,” I said.

The boy glowered. “You could’ve been hurt.”

“Why do you care?”

“I…I don’t. Just saying.”

He jammed his hands in his jacket pockets and flipped a lock of hair out of his eyes.

He had beautiful eyes—blue like topaz. Up close, I could see his jeans had holes in them and not because that was the style.

His jacket was worn at the elbows, and his hiking boots were scuffed, the laces held together by knots.

A ratty old blue backpack hung off his shoulders.

But he was even better looking than I imagined from that first glimpse, though in a totally different way than River.

This boy had a softer face somehow. Still manly—I imagined he’d grow up to be very handsome.

His eyebrows were thick but not too thick and looked perpetually knitted together with worry.

He had a nice nose, and his mouth was pretty perfect.

I actually had no idea what a “perfect” mouth looked like on a boy, except that this boy had one.

We stood for a few quiet moments, taking each other in.

The boy’s eyes swept over me, and I wondered if he was taking inventory of me the same way I had of him.

Normally, I’d have been self-conscious about my glasses, my braces, and my boobs that were growing in faster than I was ready for.

I had no feature that anyone would call perfect, yet somehow, it was okay to be standing there in the dark with him.

“So…I’m Violet.”

“Miller.”

“Miller is your first name?”

“Yeah. So?”

“It’s usually a last name.”

“Violet is usually a color.”

“It’s still a name.”