Paper Wings and Missing Things

Part 7

For a moment, Jonas debated not opening the door. He could see the girl from next door through the peephole, her face ridged in a concentrated scowl, her glasses scrunched against her face. Maybe he could pretend not to be home, or asleep, or listening to loud music. For some reason, he found himself imagining the girl hissing "Coward," as if she knew that he was trying to hide. As if she could see straight through his pathetic excuses.

"Hi, what can I do for you?" he said, squinting into the bright sun.

"I dropped something in your yard." The girl scuffed her worn shoes against the step, jerking them ferociously along its edge. "Can I get it?"

"Uh, yeah, sure! No problem." They stared at each other for a moment in silence before Jonas took a step back, opening the door wider. "Come on in."

Somehow, he ended up trailing after her as she strode forward. At the end of the hall, she turned to the right, toward the kitchen, and he followed her for a moment before realizing. "Actually, it's the other way to the backyard."

It took her three steps to slow to a stop, then she gazed around the kitchen with a look of dumb astonishment. "Oh, really? My bad." She stood still, her eyes lingering around the corners of the room.

Jonas coughed. "Um, follow me."

Walking forward, he waited for the sound of her footsteps following, and was seriously considering turning around and guiding her forward when at last she moved. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her meandering toward the sides of the room, detouring around the couch, but he decided not to comment.

Just then, there was a loud bang, and he wheeled around to see her sprawled on the ground near the box he had left there last night. She parted the flaps of its lid as she pulled herself upright, her glance flickering to its inside.

"Hey, careful!" he said sharply, stepping forward and grabbing the box. "Don't touch that!"

She glanced up, her eyes round with surprise. "Sorry."

He inhaled. "It's fine. I didn't mean to...come off sounding angry. I just don't like people touching my stuff, you know?" A nervous laugh did little to lighten his tone.

He led her to the yard.

As they stepped outside, Jonas felt the prickle of sweat along his chest, the back of his neck, his arms, and scalp. Rolling his sleeves up, he wondered if her ball would be missing, somehow. She would blame him—stare at him with those unblinking eyes. Thief, she would accuse silently, branding him once again the outcast. The criminal.

Then she calmly walked forward and picked up a small blue ball, nestled in the grass, and wiped the loose grass shavings from it. "Here it is." As she turned, he reeled back—something in the way she spun on her heel. Something in her face, too mischievous for his liking. Something about how she walked, almost with a dancer's lilt. For a moment, he thought he would look at her and see ballet slippers, sawdust on the polished stage, and a spotlight gleaming on her blonde hair.

The applause existed only in his ears, and the vision of her happy, breathless smile, directed straight toward him, faded quickly. The girl from next door stared unblinkingly at him, her whole body utterly still, from her scuffed tennis shoes to her dark, curly hair.

The whole conversation seemed far too impersonal, almost scripted. Jonas could practically hear the prompter cueing him to start his next line. "Glad you could find it."

He started toward the gate around the side of the house, but Anna made a beeline back to the house, leaving him helpless to follow once again. Almost wondering if she would "lose her way" and return to the kitchen again, he guided her firmly back to the front door.

"Thank you," Anna said politely. "See you around, Mr. Jonas."

"Yes. I mean, have a good day."

Locking the door again, he wondered if he should feel more uneasy. Both of them had known from the start that her whole story about losing her ball was an excuse to gain entrance to his house. Judging from their first meeting, he could guess why she might want to come back to his house. 

And yet—he was not annoyed with her, nor did he loathe her like she did him. If anything, he felt strangely guilty—heavy at the thought of earning this girl's dislike. In fact, he felt more worn down by her unspoken accusations than by all the verbal abuse his father had poured on him when Jonas called him from prison.

For a moment, the old feeling of panic welled up in his throat. He wanted to hide again, to sit on his bunk and pretend like the chess games in the common room had stopped, like no one would notice if he was gone. All he wanted was to withdraw into invisibility and live without the constant anxiety of trying to cover himself up from other people's questions. 

On the surface, he tried to remind himself that he had nothing to fear, that the truth could no longer hurt him—tried to calm himself with the breathing techniques showed him by his therapist—but the rawness and panic he had not experienced for years came back like an ocean breaking over his head.