Chapter 38

“Yup. That’s a lake.” We were still and really close. I’d brought my free hand up to my face again, in order to hide my two front teeth. It was a nervous habit—automatic—and I hadn’t even realized I had done it until Mathias moved it away.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Cover half your face.”

“Oh.”

The sun glistened off the ripples in the water stirred by a summer breeze. There was a hammock between two trees and a dock that went partway into the water. A thousand leaves above us rustled, and some sort of bird sounded like he was saying a name. “David, David, David.” I wondered who David was, and why the bird was calling him, as Mathias now held both of my hands. He brought them to his face. I thought he was going to kiss the back of one or both, but he untangled them and then inhaled deeply, with his nose at my palm.

“What’s it smell like?” I asked.

“You. Me, maybe, because I held it so long. It doesn’t smell like your…you know.”

“Is that what you were hoping for?”