Verver’s T-shirt, the way he held me and it was so hard, his arm against me, pressing against my neck so I thought it might break. Like he’d forgotten I was just a girl and he just might crush me from holding me so tight. I’m thinking of the smell of his T-shirt up against me, the smell of him. The way he always was, that strong, warm scent of cut grass and fresh air and limes and Christmas morning all at once. So many things, and all these things, and I’m feeling them all so much and I need to concentrate, and I have to focus, but I can’t focus at all. “It was right after my mom left for work,” I say. “The phone rang and I answered and she said, ‘Lizzie, it’s Evie. Can you help me?’ And it was hard to hear her, like she was whispering, and all I could get was the Five of Diamonds Motel. And then she hung up.” Keep it short, I tell myself. It’s the only way to keep it straight, to keep straight about it.
