She nods, surprised. “Yes.”
“What does that mean?” I ask her.
“I don’t know.”
She sighs and stares out the window, her pale hand playing with my fingers.
“You make me feel like he did,” she finally says. “Safe. Secure. Understood. No one else has ever understood me. But he did. And you do.”
I can’t tell her that I know.
I can’t tell her that I knew Finn.
It feels like it’s keeping a secret, but sometimes, that’s necessary.
“I’m glad I make you feel good,” I tell her instead.
She inches closer to me, as though she wants to try to crawl inside my skin with me.
“Hold me,” she says softly. “All night.”
“I’ll hold you until rounds,” I tell her. “Then I’ll have to go before the nurses find us.”
“When will we leave this place?’
“Soon.”
She nods and closes her eyes, and she trusts my word completely.
I love that about her.
Ten
The following day, light shines into the bus, and I sit two seats behind Calla. We’re supposed to sit with members of our own sex, but I watch Calla the entire ride. She glances back at me sometimes, but most of the way, her head is pressed to the window glass.
She looks so sad, and that worries me.
When we arrive at the craft fair, we unload from the bus, and Calla waits for me, off to the side.
Her fingers curl within mine, and we stroll along the aisles of the outdoor sales, browsing through vendors.
We look at art, at sad paintings and abstracts. Calla seems to gravitate toward the dark ones, the ones that look like they’re weeping. She pauses in front of an abstract cemetery angel, her head cocked to the side.
“I think that might be Saint Michael,” she says.
St. Michael protect me.
Her brother always wore the St. Michael medallion.
“It could be,” I agree.
We move on to the next booth and the next, u
ntil we come to a jewelry booth. I casually browse the vendor’s wares, but I’m not overly impressed. I do come from money, even though I detest my family. I’m accustomed to nice things, and this vendor’s stuff, while not fake, is not overly nice.
But then Calla gasps and points, grabbing at something silver.
“This,” she tells me, opening her palm. A scratched silver band lays there, glinting in the light. “You were wearing this in my dreams.”