Rage: A Love Story by Julie Anne Peters

should correct his spelling and punctuation.”
    “What?”
    “He has an IQ of a hundred and sixty, you know.”
    “Really?”
    She clicks her tongue, like, Yes, you should know. What do I know about autism?
    Reeve rereads something. As she does, she plucks eyelashes out of her eyelid. I notice then how almost all the eyelashes on her right eye are missing.
    “Is any of it true?” I ask.
    “It’s Robbie’s interpretation,” she says.
    “What’s your interpretation?” What did she write in her essay? “Is he … Are you …?” God. How to ask this? “Are you guys being molested?”
    Reeve laughs.
    My face flushes.
    “I’m sorry.” She claps a hand over her mouth. “It’s just…” She laughs silently behind her hand.
    She’s laughing at me. My eyes skim up and down her arm, any square of exposed skin I can see. What do cutting scars look like? I just blurt it out: “Do you cut?”
    She stops laughing. Releasing the leg from underneath her, she arches away from me and says, “Johanna, you can’t begin to understand.”
    Is she right? Because I
don’t
understand any of it. My own tragedies are so … ordinary.
    “Don’t ever ask me questions you can’t handle the answers to.” She stares down at Robbie’s essay.
    She thinks I’m naïve. Which, okay, maybe I am.
    I reach over and place my hand on her leg. “I want to know you.”
    She sucks in a breath, like my touch burned her, or my words did. I remove my hand and she exhales. “All that stuff happened in the past,” she says. “It’s shit from Robbie’s childhood. Nice childhood, huh?”
    It was yours too, I think. “So,” I say, “it’s over?”
    Reeve pushes to her feet and the essay sails to the floor. “The asshole’s gone. He’s been gone for years.” She drops to her knees by her makeup, picks up a tube of mascara, and unscrews it.
    “But who’s that guy at your house?”
    “What guy?” She opens a lighted mirror.
    “That guy who beat up your mom.”
    She slaps the mirror down. “Is that all you wanted to talk about? My crappy home life?”
    “No.”
    “What else?”
    The tension crackles. “Us.”
    She shakes her head. “There is no
us.”
    “Not yet,” I say. “But I want there to be.”
    The atoms between us charge and split. Reeve says slowly, “Can’t you hear? Did I not point it all out? You can’t handle me.”
    “You don’t know what I can handle.”
    “Fine,” she says.
    “Reeve.” In one breath, I let out the life I’ve been holding in. “I want you. I don’t care what baggage you bring. I’ve—I’ve got stuff too.”
    This shakes her visibly. She pushes to her feet and heads for the door. I shoulder my pack. “Don’t forget Robbie’s memoir.” She points to the floor and I stoop to reassemble the strewn pages.
    “He’s supposed to write about high school, isn’t he? Make him start over.”
    “Okay,” I say. We’ll start at the beginning. You and me, Reeve. Let’s begin.
    “Will you toss me my shoes?”
    I do better than that. I gather the pair of plats and kneel in front of her to slip them onto her feet. I clasp her right ankle and her toes curl under. I run my index finger across the bridge of each toe.
    She closes her eyes and opens her mouth.
    I rise to face her and the light extinguishes. She says, “Forget it.”
    “No.” I take her hand. “I know what I want, Reeve.” Enough wasted time. “I know what I can handle.”

Chapter 13
     
    “J ohanna, there you are.” Tessa sits up in one of the lawn chairs out back, crocheting a square of pink and purple yarn. Her yarn bag overflows with similar squares, like she’s making quilt blocks. I check out her stomach to see if there’s a change. “Come over here,” she says.
    I almost say, You come here. I know what she’s going to ask.
    “Your graduation”—Tessa continues to work—”is on May twenty-third, right?”
    “Um, yeah.”
    “Do you want a party?”
    “A what?”
    “If you want, we can plan a