Page 100 of Her Wicker Guardian

Rachel puts down the phone. “No.”

The answer comes without hesitation. The rhythm at my center deepens once. I don’t have a word for the feeling that comes with it yet. I only know that I like her answer.

By early afternoon, the sounds beyond the curtains are no longer only voices and cars. Equipment hums. Doors slide open and shut. Someone tests a microphone loudly enough that I hear numbers being counted from the road.

Rachel looks outside. “News trucks.”

I join her at the curtain, careful not to open it farther. Several line the road beyond Aaron’s barriers. People with large cameras face the cottage while reporters speak to people I cannot see.

“What are they saying?”

“Probably whatever they can find out.”

“But they have not asked us.”

“No.”

I watch a woman speaking into a microphone. She gestures toward the cottage while keeping her face turned toward the camera.

Four teenagers came yesterday because they wanted to see me. At first, they stared. Then they asked questions, and somewhere during those questions they became Tessa, Eli, Connor, and Owen.

These people already know my name. They do not know me.

Rachel steps back from the curtain, and her shoulder brushes mine. The contact is brief, but I notice it immediately. I notice too many things about her now: the loose strand of hair beside her cheek, the crease between her eyebrows when she is worried, the way her voice changes when she is trying not to laugh.

I want to put my hand against her back. Last night she touched me because she wanted to. Now I want to know what it feels like to make the same choice.

I leave my hand where it is.

Blair calls again in the afternoon. She says the reporters will keep filling the silence if we give them nothing, but that does not mean we owe them access.

Rachel looks at me after the call. “We can stay in here.”

I look toward the curtain. “Yes.”

“We can also go out once, answer what you want to answer, and come back in.”

“What do you want?” I ask.

Rachel gives a tired laugh. “For everyone to go home.”

“That’s not one of the choices.”

“No.”

She glances toward the front door and then back at me. “I don’t love the idea of taking you out there. But I also don’t love them spending all day talking about you without ever hearing from you.”

I think about the photograph, the words underneath it, and Jose explaining that people may argue about what I am. If they are going to talk about me, I want them to hear me too.

“I want to go outside.”

Rachel nods. “Okay.”

She doesn’t ask me to reconsider.

Aaron meets us before we reach the road. Another deputy stands near the line of barriers, and several bright orange cones mark the edge of the shoulder.

“I know those,” I say.