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night breeze swept over her.
    She had met him way back in junior high. He’d walked into her life when she’d been just thirteen, and she hadn’t forgotten him since. Thirteen. She’d been a year younger than Brendan when she’d met Sean, a tou gh age. She’d already been five- eight, slim—but maturing. She’d had breasts. Most of the boys in school then were gawky, pimplefaced, and squeaky-voiced. Trying to appear mature but not quite there. Her first day of eighth grade, a group of boys had been torturing her. Ricky Garcia and Ted Neeson had been the worst.
    “Hey, new girl, want to come to a meeting of our four Fs club?”
    “Four Fs—what’s that?” she’d naively asked. Ricky had looked at Ted. He’d moved closer to her. “Find ’em, feel ’em, fuck ’em, and forget ’em!” he’d told her, bursting into gales of laughter.
    At the time his use of the four-letter word had stunned her. Her cheeks had gone crimson. She’d been absolutely humiliated. “Come on, wanna play?” Ted had urged. They were both pressing her closer and closer to the lockers, and she didn’t want to be scared, unnerved by these creeps. Jan Hunt, in second period, had told her that Ricky and Ted were popular guys, in the right crowd. Now they were doing this to her, and if she freaked out, she’d be the laughingstock of the school for the rest of her life. She was trying to say something smart and strong, but no words would come to her lips. Then Sean arrived.
    He was tall and lanky, dark hair parted at the side, a little shaggy, falling over one eye. He stepped right up to Ricky, caught hold of his shirt at the shoulder, and pulled him firmly away from Lori. “Give the girl a break, you asses. She’s new here—she’ll think we’re all a bunch of delinquents.”
    “Ah, come on, Sean, we’re just trying to see if she has a sense of humor.”
    “She’s laughing on the inside. Now, leave her the hell alone. Get going, both of you.” And they did. They turned around like two chastised puppies and slunk away down the hall. “They’re really not so bad. They’re just jerks at times,” Sean told her, smiling ruefully. And at that moment, that precise moment, she’d fallen in love. He had a little dimple in his chin. His eyes were a devastating deep blue.
    His voice had already changed—no squeaking out of him.
    “Thanks,” she told him.
    He walked her home.
    And he’d made her laugh, and he’d been devastatingly g ood-looking to a thirteen-year- old girl, but beyond that, she had just liked him, his casual, natural ability to be warm, decent, friendly, funny … strong on the inside.
    Her parents had hated him. Not personally , of course. But they’d said right away that he just wasn’t the right kind of kid for her to be hanging around with. He was the wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of a kid, even if there were no “tracks” dividing them. Her parents had simply rejected him as no good, even before the awful day at the rock pit.
    Maybe, in a way, they’d all been destroyed that day. No matter what games they were playing at life now.
    Life and death. Ellie was dead now as well.
    But Sean was here. And after all these years she’d never really gotten him out of her heart. Her soul. No, her mind. God, no, her conscience. He’d always been there in the deep, dark corners where she knew she’d been wrong, a coward—where she hadn’t tried hard enough, done enough, protested enough …
    Told the whole truth …
    “Mom?”
    Lori started, realizing at last that she’d been just standing on the sidewalk like a zombie. Frozen. Embarrassingly gaping. For how long?
    Long enough. Brendan—the precious child whom she’d all but forgotten—was standing on the sidewalk in front of her, Tina at his side. The two had left the bookstore to come looking for her. She gave herself a mental shake.
    “Are you all right, Mom? You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost or something,” Brendan said.
    She shook her head.