Chapter 3 - His Breath Hit My Wet Hair First
I felt him before I saw his face.
Mom had me pulled in tight against her side, my cheek pressed to the navy fabric of her dress, and the heat from her body was the only warm thing I had. My own dress was soaked through and stuck cold to my legs. Water kept dripping off the ends of my hair onto the marble. I could hear it. A little tick every time a drop hit.
Then the air moved.
He stepped in so close his shoe almost touched my bare foot. I smelled cologne and something sharp underneath it, like coffee gone cold. His shadow cut across the bright light from the phones. Mom's arm tightened around me. Not a squeeze to hurt. A lock.
I didn't look up at first. I stared at his black shirt and the bow tie sitting perfect at his throat. His chest was rising fast. I could hear him breathing through his nose. Mom was breathing too, but hers was different. Low. Steady. Like she was making herself stay still.
The ballroom had gone strange. A second ago there had been music and chairs scraping and people whispering my name. Now it was just the hum of the chandelier and the soft buzz from all those phones held up around us. White circles of light. I could see them glowing against the marble floor out of the corner of my eye. Nobody moved to turn them off.
Mom shifted her weight. I felt her shoulder come forward in front of me, just enough to put herself between me and him. Her hair was pulled back so tight I could see the skin at her temple jump. A small muscle there kept tightening.
He leaned in.
I finally looked up. His face was right there above me, too close. Short brown hair damp at the forehead. His jaw was clenched so hard the skin under his ear shook. His eyes weren't on me. They were locked on Mom. Angry in a way that made my stomach drop, like I had done something that could never be fixed.
I wanted to say it again. The word was still sitting in my throat. Sorry. It had come out of me twice without me meaning to, shaking and small, and saying it hadn't helped. It never helped. I pressed my mouth shut and pushed my face harder into Mom's side. The fabric of her long sleeve was damp now from my hair. I could feel her hand flat against my back, fingers spread wide.
That was when I felt the change in her.
It wasn't loud. She didn't push him or step back. She went still in a different way. Her ribs stopped moving so fast under my cheek. Her hand on my back stopped trembling and went solid. I felt her chin drop a little, just an inch, like she was looking straight up into his face and refusing to blink.
The light from the phones caught the side of her face. I saw the set of her mouth. Not scared. Not sorry.
"You don't get to say that."
Her voice was low and flat and right above my head. I felt it more than I heard it, the vibration in her chest going straight through into my cheek. She said it to him. Only to him.
He didn't move back.
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Nobody in the circle moved. The phones stayed up. The bright spots didn't waver. I could feel a drop of water slide down my neck and disappear under the collar of my light blue dress, cold against my skin, and I shivered. Mom's fingers pressed in once against my shoulder blade, holding me there.
We stayed like that. Him leaning in. Her not giving an inch. Me between them but behind her arm.
