Keeping Never Read Free

eyes swing over to Ty's face and freeze there. I see right away that she senses a change in him. It's like some switch has been flicked in Ty's brain. It's turned off that fire, that light, that energy and left him blank. I have to shake him out of it and quick. I once saw this girl use a little, plastic clicker on a frightened dog. It was pulling on its leash, flailing around like a mad thing. She clicked the device and its ears snapped forward; its eyes swung over to her face. I decide that Ty is much the same as that dog in this moment. He isn't thinking clearly, and it's my job to snap him out of it. A slap is out of the question, so I maneuver myself in front of him and clap my hands hard and sharp. Works like a charm. After all, inside of each of us is a frightened animal waiting to take over and send us over the edge.
    Ty blinks at me carefully and then folds his hands over his mouth in a steepled position.
    “ Ty … ” I begin and then glance over my shoulder at Lettie who's still staring at Ty with a curious expression on her young face. She doesn't understand the pain she sees in him, and I hope she never does. “Tell Beth I'll be there in a minute,” I say and when Lettie doesn't retreat, I raise my eyebrows and purse my lips. Little kids are excellent at reading body language. It's a skill that slowly disappears as we get older, but one that I think the world would benefit from nurturing. So much can be said with a raised brow or a tense jaw, a tilted head, a firm set to one's shoulders. Lettie sighs and retreats, letting the screen door slam behind her. She doesn't bother to close the front door which makes me nervous. My family is notoriously nosy, and I know somehow, just know, that Noah Scott is listening, too. I turn back to my bad boy, my heart throb, panty dropping, butterfly whose smile makes me weak in the knees and whose eyes burn me from the inside out and cleanse my pain each and every time I look at him. I turn back to him and I ask, “What's going on?” See, I know nothing about Ty's past, nothing at all. He's got all the gory, dirty details of my life spelled out in blood and I have nothing on him but the whispers of ghosts. He doesn't like his mom; she took pictures of cars; he stole her rings. Other than that, I've got nothing.
    “ My mother's in the hospital,” Ty says, and then he drops his hands and turns around, sitting down on the porch swing heavy and hard like his legs have just given out, crippled by the weight of this revelation. “That was actually her lawyer on the phone. He says she's pretty much dead and that if I want to see her before she goes that I better get my butt up to New York.” I don't know what to say (which seems to happen a lot lately), so I just sit down next to Ty and take his butterflies in my hand, brush my fingers over his skin. It's all smooth up his arm and though I've never seen him do it, I think he shaves, so that the tattoos are as bright and crisp as can be. What do you say to someone who hates their last, dying family member?
    “Would you like to go see her?” I ask. Ty laughs, harsh and hard, like I haven't heard in awhile. If I'm being honest with myself, I have to say that it's a little scary.
    “ Fuck no,” he says and then pulls his hand from mine so he can drop his face into his palms with a groan. “Honestly, I hope that cancer has rotted her from the inside out.”
    “ Ty,” I begin because I know how hard it is to hold onto that hate. Even now, on this Christmas Eve, this momentous moment when all her family is gathered in one, single spot for the first time in years, the first time in Maple and Darla's existence, my mother is heading out the front door and giving me and Ty a cursory glance that's as empty as Ty's were when he got his phone call. My mother (I use this term loosely) has on a pair of bright, red boots with heels that are inappropriate for the snowy weather and a short, black dress that peeks out from beneath her