Page 8 of Wicked Hungry

“Yeah,” I say, soft again. “I mean, we just pinky promised, after all.”

“You’re different. At least I hope you are.”

“But you and Zach—”

“We had this big fight. I got real angry, and he called me a bunch of names: ‘polluter,’ ‘carnivore,’ ‘unclean,’ and I got so angry. I called him some names myself, then, like ‘fascist,’ ‘extremist,’ and good old ‘asshole,’ and he pushed me. I kind of grabbed his arm, twisted it. It was like, if I hadn’t held back, I could have broken it? Though I didn’t, did I? But now he seems to think I’m some kind of psycho.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Zach was an asshole, you had a fight, and now you’re dangerous?”

“It’s not just the fight. It’s what I can do.”

“What you can do?”

“You really want me to tell you?”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” I say. “It’s all right with me if you don’t want to touch people.”

We walk some more. The air is cold, my knee aches with every step, and now Karen is mad at me. I would do anything to see her smile right now.

“You need a hug?” I blurt out.

Immediately, I can’t believe I’ve said it. What’s the matter with me? She almost breaks Zach’s arm, she’s afraid to touch people, and now I offer her a hug? On the other hand, she did offer me a friendship bracelet, and don’t friends give each other hugs?

She bites her lip. “I don’t know.”

We stand on the sidewalk for a moment, neither one of us moving.

“So you don’t want a hug, then?” I ask her. “No strings attached.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, what, then?”

“I’m still kind of mad. But you’re really not afraid of me?”

I shake my head.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t be silly, Karen. A hug never hurt anyone.”

“But I hurt people,” she says. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Still she moves toward me, and then she’s in my arms. She smells sweet, like roses. Red roses. I hold her, and she holds me tight. After a moment I feel the tension drain from her.

“You smell good,” I say.

“It’s called taking a shower, Stanley. You should try it.”

Taking a shower makes you smell like roses? I can almost taste them. But I let her go and she backs up. There’s a tear in one eye, and I want to reach up and touch it with my finger.

But she reaches out first and touches my neck.

For a moment I forget the moon up above me. There is nothing but Karen’s cold fingers on my neck and her lips there in front of me.