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Other than the porch and kitchen light Dad told me I could keep on, I turned off everything else on the way back upstairs. Like a ghost haunting me, my overactive imagination followed me in the darkness, making me take two steps at a time to escape it.
After I wedged the old dining chair under my doorknob, I put the movie back on and sat on the bed.
A basket of my drawing stuff slid closer to me, and I pulled out my sketch pad and pencil as I crossed my legs underneath me.
Every day since it happened, I lost hours daydreaming about Dominic kissing me on the picnic table. Though I got a new and improved version every morning at school, it was that first kiss I had to recreate in my book anytime I had a spare second.
Just as I smoothed out the curve on the heart he carved into the table before we left that night, a few clicks came to my bedroom window.
A tiny white moth beat its wings against the glass when I peeked up from my drawing, landing right at the edge of the frame like it knew I needed some company.
Using my fingertip to smudge the ripples in the water, I blended in the pencil strokes until gentle knocking started on the wavy glass. “Faith, it’s me. Open up.”
Tossing my sketchbook aside, I rushed to him and pushed the window up. “What are you doing? You’re going to fall.”
Dom climbed through the bottom one leg at a time, closing the window behind him. “Nah. It was easy.” Still catching his breath, he shook his head as he looked around. “This is not how I expected your room to look.”
He hooked his finger in my bra hanging off the bedpost and laughed at me when I snatched it away. “What did you expect?”
Moving all the trophies aside on my chest of drawers to read the inscriptions, he shrugged one of his shoulders back at me. “You know. Pink and fluffy, with lots of teddy bears and pillows.”
I tucked my bra into my top drawer and leaned against the dresser as he wandered from thing to thing. “You didn’t walk here, did you? I didn’t hear your truck pull up the driveway.”
The metal bat I kept propped beside my dresser came out of the corner, and he put it up to his shoulder to feel it out. “I parked at the playground.”
Always in motion, he touched everything he came across until he finally sat on my bed and spun the bat under his fingertip. “So, back to our earlier conversation about how you don’t feel like talking to me tonight. Can you explain what I did to make that happen so I don’t do it again?”
His eyes drifted down my body, and it occurred to me that there was nothing between me and him except the worn-out T-shirt I put on. So, I shifted my arms to cover myself better and shrugged at him. “I’m just having a bad day, and then Dad yelled at me and...” Since we met, he had done a hundred nice things for me. It made me feel terrible whenever I had to tell him no or couldn’t see him when he wanted. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m sorry if I was rude. I didn’t mean to make you come over here so late.”
Resting the bat against my bedpost, he clasped his hands between his knees. “I couldn’t go to sleep with you so upset. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t come check on you?”
Sitting down next to him, I laid my head on his shoulder, and he dug his nose into my hair as I squeezed his arm. “There’s no reason for both of us to stay up all night.”
He leaned forward to see my face and rubbed his thumb over the darkness under my eye. “You can’t go on like this forever. So, if I have to come check for the boogie man every night, I will.”
Noticing my drawing pad poking out from under my leg, he tugged it free and held it in front of him. “Wow. This is really good, baby.” The pages flipped under his thumb as he looked over the other drawings. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an artist?”
I could never tell if he was teasing me when he paid me a compliment, or maybe I wasn’t used to hearing them much. But I only poked my finger into his side, because no one had ever taken a second look at anything I ever drew before. “Stop. I’m not in the mood to be picked on right now.”
His fingertips traced the little heart on the table. “I mean it, Faith. Every detail is perfect.” A little wider, his eyes came over to me. “Can I have it when you’re all finished?”
From how soft his voice was to how he smiled at it, he seemed so proud of what I’d done, and I shifted my chin slightly to make sure he really meant it. “Are you for real?”
Smiling back at me, he leaned forward and set the sketchbook on the nightstand. “That’s our spot, Faith. I don’t want to ever forget what happened there. It was the best night of my life.” When he came back, his shoulder brushed mine, and he arched his brow at me as he bent down to kiss it. “So far, that is.”
He flipped his eyes back and forth between mine, saying nothing as he stared at me.
I didn’t have a lot of people left in my life I was certain cared about me anymore, but everything about Dom’s expression was love for me. As much as I wanted him to stand guard for me all night, all this guilt made me gently shove him away. “Thank you for coming here tonight. But I don’t want you to get in trouble with your mom, so you should go.”
“The only thing you need to worry about is getting some sleep, and I’m not leaving until you do.” He brought my hand to his lips, tilting his head toward the television. “So, go on and restart that movie. I’ve never seen it before and don’t want to miss anything.”
I nodded back at him, knowing he wouldn’t take no for an answer anyway. While he fluffed the pillows against the wall and pulled back my blanket for us to cuddle up in, I pushed play on the remote again.
All I remembered was him kissing the side of my head as he whispered, “Goodnight, baby,” and the alarm clock ringing the following day.
Sunlight warmed my face as it moved over me through the gap in the curtains Dom closed on his way out the window, and my blanket had been tucked in all around me.
The drawing he liked so much was only one of a hundred others like it. It wasn’t special or even my best work. But it had been carefully removed from my drawing pad, a note taking its place on the next clean page. ‘See you at school. Love you.’
