Page 74 of Touch the Sky

I force myself to slow down.

“I mean, it can’t ever happen again.”

Jacinthe nods, just once, before she goes back to picking at the loose thread in the lead rope.

“Right. You’re right.”

Her voice has become too monotone to read, especially when she’s not looking at me anymore.

The longer I stare at her, the more I feel like there’s a fist squeezing around my heart, tightening its grip with every second of uncertainty.

“Not that I don’t want?—”

I cut myself off before I can finish that sentence.

Even saying the things I want feels dangerous, like a forbidden incantation in a spell book waiting to unleash an unknown chaos.

“I mean, it’s just, with Shel,” I say instead, “and us living here, it’s…complicated.”

“I know,” Jacinthe says. “I get it. Trust me. I understand.”

I remind myself she has commitments too. She knows what it’s like to have so much riding on your shoulders that a single misstep can send your whole life toppling out of control.

“I know you do.”

We hold each other’s gaze this time, and it’s almost like we’re making a vow, a declaration, a bond to a single truth:

There is something in us that’s the same.

Then we snap apart, retreating into ourselves.

“So, we’re in agreement, then?” I say, stuffing my hands back in my pockets and giving her a curt nod, like this is all business. “It was stupid. It won’t happen again, and as for being attracted to each other, we’ll just…let that go.”

I do my best not to grimace. I sound naïve even to myself, but I can’t see another option.

Wehaveto let it go.

“I mean, lots of people are attracted to each other and never do anything about it,” I say, jerking my shoulders up in what I hope is a passable shrug. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. We’re both adults. We can handle it.”

Jacinthe plants her hand on her hip.

“Yeah,” she says, in that same monotone voice from earlier. “Of course. So now we just…go back to normal?”

I cross my arms in addition to my legs, tying myself in knots to mirror the ones in my stomach.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. We go back to normal.”

I try to picture what normal even means, and I can’t.

I don’t know if there ever was a normal when it comes to Jacinthe. I watched this woman scream bloody murder at a deranged donkey the day I met her, and I think maybe I’ve been utterly fascinated by her ever since.

Still, normal can’t include kissing her, and normal is what I’m here for, after all. I’m here to build a normal, stable, functional life. A life I can count on. A life Shel can count on.

I cling to the thought of Shel, to the sight of her running up the driveway after school, a huge smile on her face as she returns to the place she’s starting to think of as home.

I can do normal for her.

“So,” Jacinthe says, reaching for the latch on Sam’s door. “Are you gonna help me with these horses or just stand there all morning?”