“Excuse me.”
The hot guy was looking at me expectantly. I stared at him, slack jawed, the Cosmo magazine clutched tightly in my hands, waiting for him to say more.
My eyes were barely above the dashboard of the minivan, so I couldn’t really see out. When I heard the door to the grocery store chime, I prayed it was Max coming out, not Ben, but I didn’t dare look out. Since no one approached the van right away, I had to figure it was Ben. The urge to peek, to lift my head just slightly and look around to see if it was him was excruciating, but I didn’t do it. A few seconds later, I heard an engine turn over and still waited. Once I had heard the vehicle pull away, I looked out the window to see an older red truck pulling out onto the road. It made sense that he would drive a truck since we all lived in the woods. And it made sens
“Ben Peterson.” I said his name again. It was so weird to have a name to put with a face, though I wasn’t sure why. Everyone had a name. I guess I was expecting his to be something more… unusual, sort of like him. Ben was an ordinary name. Peterson was, too. I felt like maybe his name should’ve been Striker or Rider or something. But Ben Peterson was a nice name--an ordinary, nice name.
I didn’t go far this time. Not only was Grandma’s odd behavior weighing on my mind, I couldn’t shake how scared I’d been the day before when I’d ran into that other house out there, the one that seemed to be surrounded by dead trees and dark ground. I didn’t want to have any sort of contact with anyone who loved there.I wasn&rsquo
I led Grayson through the woods toward the sound of chopping. The same markers I’d tried to keep track of the day before were still there. This time, I tried to think of them in reverse order so that if I had to flee Ben’s yard, I could do so without getting lost. Not that I planned to do that this time. For one thing, there was no way in the world Grayson would take off running from a hot guy, and for the other, I had a reason to talk to Ben now that I hadn't had the day before. He’d bought the magazine for me, after all, and I could use that as an excuse to speak to him, to say thank you.
Grayson heard it, too, her eyes were wide as she turned and looked behind her, exactly where my eyes were also trained. A form appeared on the path where we’d just come from, but it wasn’t Sam, and it wasn’t Ben. It was another guy, probably about my age. He was a little taller than me, though not much, and not nearly as tall as Sam. He had chocolate brown eyes and a friendly smile. His caramel brown hair was short and spiked in the front, and as he got closer, I couldn’t help but think I’d seen him somewhere before, though I couldn’t imagine where it would’ve been. He certainly wasn’t at the grocery store or at Ben’s house.
For the next several days, my sister bugged me nonstop about going to see the boys next door. I was not as enthusiastic as she was. As much as she wanted to see them, she did not want to go gallivanting through the forest by herself, and when she found out the route by road was about two miles, she decided it was too hot to go that way, too, even though it was only about eighty degrees outside, which isn’t nearly as hot as California in the summer.
The next morning, I sat across from Gray at the table while she ate a huge bowl of her favorite cereal and I sort of half-heartedly picked at a piece of toast. I wasn’t hungry. I’d been thinking a lot about what had happened with Raven in the woods yesterday. It wasn’t that it seemed like Ben was mad at her--maybe he was--it was her circumstances that were weighing on my mind. I didn’t understand how anyone could send their daughter off to live with strangers half a nation away. It was troubling and made me appreciate my parents even more than I had before.
Walking in the woods, about an hour later, I couldn’t get Grandma’s words out of my mind. She hadn’t elaborated, and no one had asked her to, Grayson had stared at her and then me but ended up heading out of the room. I hadn’t asked either. I’m not sure why. It seems like the sort of thing anyone one would’ve asked for clarification about, but I didn’t. I felt like, deep inside, I knew it was true, though I wasn’t sure why.