Page 46 of She’s Worth the Risk

“Did you know there are 20,000 bodies underneath us?” a voice says beside me.

I turn, blinking against the bright light to find Zinnia sitting on the next bench. She’s in a flowing tangerine-colored summer dress, dark hair shining in the sun. When my eyes meet hers, she grins.

“Crazy, huh?”

Despite myself—despite all the hours I spent this weekend getting her off my mind and out of my system, hours telling myself it will be better when she’s gone—my heart quickens. I smile, surprised she knows that little fact, and even more surprised by how casually she says it. Afraid of the dark, not afraid of sitting on a mass grave.

As if she could somehow become even more fascinating.

“I did,” I say, taking a bite of my sandwich.

She opens her own lunch. A wrap. “Kind of amazing if you think about it.”

I nod, distracted by a sensation I can’t pinpoint. Like a calm washing over me, a slow, easy settling at being near her again.

“Yellow fever, mostly,” she says thoughtfully. “In the late 18th and early 19th centuries.”

I fight a smile as I eat, impressed. Most people walk through this park oblivious, but not Zinnia. She notices the world, thinks about it, sees it in her own way. Her assignment on Botticelli was no different, exploring the idealized female body in Renaissance art, and I had to stop myself from underlining every other sentence for its sheer brilliance.

“So, listen,” she says, turning to me and lowering her voice, expression becoming serious. My heart lurches as I think she’s going to mention what happened between us on Thursday night—or rather, almost happened—but she says, “I, um, wanted to thank you for being so kind when I lost my shit during the blackout.”

I chew my sandwich, keeping my gaze fixed ahead on the fountain. If anything, I should be the one thanking her for listening to me without judgment in a way no one ever has. That’s what makes this so difficult. Yes, she’s beautiful, with those gold-rimmed eyes and curves I ache to trace with more than my pencil. And yes, she’s funny and insightful and interesting. But more than any of that is the way she cares. Wondering how I felt in that chapel. Buying me the sketchbook. Asking why I don’t draw.

And understanding, really understanding, why I stopped.

“You’re welcome,” I murmur, stuffing my sandwich in my mouth to hide the low scrape of my voice.

She’s quiet for a moment, eating. “I got stuck in a bathroom during a blackout as a kid,” she says at last.

I glance at her. “How?”

“It was a new house. I couldn’t figure out the lock. It was pitch-black, and I panicked. I mean, it was years ago, but—”

“But you don’t forget,” I say, thinking of Marcus with my sketchbook. I was seventeen. A lifetime ago.

But sometimes it still feels like yesterday.

Her gaze meets mine, softening, as if she knows what I’m thinking. “Yeah.”

I look away. “How long did it take you to figure out the lock?”

“I never did, but it didn’t matter. We moved a few months later. We were always moving.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s just what my parents did. They still do.” When I give her a puzzled look, she adds, “They’re management consultants, and never in one place for long. Sometimes I’d only stay in a school for a few weeks before we had to move again.”

“Shit,” I say, and she shoots me a wry smile. “That can’t have been easy as a kid.”

She lifts a shoulder, turning to look at the fountain. “You get used to it.”

I study her, the way she lifts her chin, brushing off my comment. She’s putting on a brave face, but that sort of instability would be incredibly difficult for a child. Constantly having to make new friends. Meet new teachers. Learn new places. Never knowing when it will change again. Even though my parents have now retired and moved to Maine, I’m lucky that my childhood was stable.

I think again about what she said last night: I’ll be gone by Labor Day. Not, I’m going home, just, I’ll be gone. And for the first time, I wonder where “home” is.

If she even knows.

“Where’s home now?” I ask, pretending to be fascinated by the contents of my sandwich.