“Hi,” says a small, wavering voice, and Kemple twists his head around to find the girl standing in his doorway. She looks the same way she did that first night—skinny, wide-eyed, with a sharp, angular face that makes it seem like she’s spent a lot of time looking into a mirror, just to hone that permanent scowl of hers. But her lips are flexed into a smile.
He grumbles and turns his head away. Smiling or not, he’d rather she leave him alone, just so he can finish hating her in peace. “Why don’t you go break into something else?” he mutters. “Then Abner can wallop you this time.”
The girl says nothing. Instead, she steps quietly into his room. Her bare feet scuff against the floorboards, like a cat’s tail swishing gently back and forth.
“I said go away,” he mutters into the fabric of his cot.
“No,” the girl replies, her voice annoyingly casual, “you told me to break into something else. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m breaking into your room.”
Kemple frowns. His room is hardly a room at all—a sad fact that Abner makes sure of. There’s a cot, a dusty closet, a battered little dresser with some shabby clothes inside, and a grimy window with a lock on it to keep it from opening. Really, if he had to describe it, he’d call it more of a prison cell than anything else. “Be my guest,” he says, closing his eyes. “There’s nothing here worth taking.”
Josephyn makes a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat, then her cat-tail feet swish around the room. Kemple tries not to listen—tries not to care—but he finds himself straining to hear anyway, just so he can follow her movement. She moves toward the closet, then toward the dresser. Then she makes her way to the window and lingers there for a while, as if she’s looking out at the dry, grassy fields beyond the house, her gaze fixed on that lonely dirt road that he’s spent so many afternoons staring at—that long, never-ending path that quietly promises so many things. Adventure. Escape. Freedom. Then the girl sniffs, shuffles over to his cot and stands so close that he can hear her slow, steady breathing. Suddenly he’s aware of how pitiful he must look, lying here shirtless, with all those long, red welts peppered across his spine and shoulder-blades. He tries to roll over, but the pain on his back flares up again, like a fresh splash of acid on his skin, and despite his best effort to stay quiet, a whimper escapes his lips.
“I’m sorry, Kemple.” She pushes the words out slowly, as if it’s hard for her to apologize. As if she’s not used to doing it. “I’m sorry you got this because of me.”
The apology sounds genuine, but something inside him isn’t ready to let go. That anger keeps twisting and blazing in his gut, like he’s swallowed a miniature sun, and just the thought of letting it fizzle away makes his teeth clench and grit. It wouldn’t be fair for him to get such a beating and for her to expect it to all be okay, just because she says a few lousy words. “You should be sorry,” he says, letting the sun inside him scorch his ribs. “Letting me take the blame for you? That makes you a terrible person, you know.”
The girl replies quickly, her voice lashing out, her tone suddenly hard and thick. “I didn’t ask you to do anything for me.”
For a split-second, Kemple actually cringes, half-expecting her words to come with the smacking sting of a buckle. But when nothing happens, he rolls over to face her, wincing as the cot scrapes his skin. “You did ask me,” he says, scowling at her birdlike face. “You said please.” And she really, truly did. He’s replayed that exact moment in his mind so many times. No way is he letting her pretend it never happened.
Josephyn looks back at him, matching his scowl, like she’s the smaller, girl-version of himself. Then her expression softens, and she gives him a nod. “Yeah, okay,” she says. “Maybe I did.” She brushes her dark bangs away from her green eyes and says quickly, “But I’m still here, saying sorry for it. That has to count for something.”
The sun moves inside him, sliding its heat up his stomach, lodging its flames in his throat, and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s trying to escape, to be free, to burst out into the open air so it can wither away completely, like a flame trying to leap off its wick. But he swallows the rage back down, holding it in place. He’s not ready to forgive her yet. Not while the skin of his back still feels like it’s made out of smoldering coals. “Apologies count for nothing,” he tells her, turning his face away. Then, as if Abner is speaking through him, he says, “Now get.”
But the girl doesn’t move. She just stands there, breathing steadily, probably staring daggers at him. Then she says quietly, “I don’t believe you. I think you’re already forgiving me, you’re just too stubborn to admit it. But that’s okay. Stubborn is good. It’s what’ll keep bastards like Abner from getting under your skin.”
Kemple says nothing back. The girl talks like she knows everything, but she’s only just met Abner. She’s only seen the beginning of life in this man’s miserable house. Let her live here for a few months like he has, then she’ll know better. She’ll learn what he’s learned the hard way: bastards like Abner will always find a way under your skin. “Just let me alone,” he mutters. “It hurts, and I can’t cry with your stupid face watching me.”
Josephyn sighs and places something bulky on his cot, nestling it under the crook of his elbow. Then her cat-tail feet swish across the floor. He listens as she pauses at the doorway—maybe to look back at him, or maybe to say something else. Whatever it is, she must decide against it, because her footsteps then move briskly into the hall, until they’ve faded away completely.
He frowns at the dingy closet and waits for a moment, letting the dull silence of the house drape over him like an invisible sheet. Then he looks down at the thing she left under his arm.
It’s a wrinkled paper bag—one of those empty grocery packages that Abner likes to hoard in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Inside is an old can opener and small tin can, the label faded and half-peeled. He reads the can quietly, barely moving his lips. “Pork and beans,” he whispers. Abner’s favorite. The man must not’ve noticed this one missing from his stash.
The can feels weighty in his grip, and not just in a physical way. No, it’s as if he’s holding an actual bar of gold. And despite his best effort to cling to that ball of anger in his gut, the fire quickly goes out, all that heat withering into a plume of cool, damp smoke.
He stuffs the can back into the bag, reaches over the edge of the cot, and slips the package quietly into the top drawer of his dresser. His own secret treasure. Then he slumps back onto the cot and rests his knuckles against his eyes, doing his best not to smirk.
“Okay, Josephyn,” he mutters under his breath. “Apology accepted.”
BEAST HEART by Kyle Richardson
coming March 2020
Wild Horse Page 4