All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 82

82

Outside a couple of girls in peasant blouses passed by.

Their hair fell in waves to flared jeans and dizzying heels, thickening the air with perfumes stolen from their mothers.

Patch sat on the curb beside his bag as a sun-dashed Monta Clare eased toward closing day. Boys along the sidewalk wore jackets and florid shirts, unbuttoned to slivers of pale skin, their hair mostly long.

A dozen signs spun in the breeze. Hanes Jewelry and Rewalt Autos; Braybart Coffee; the red, white, and blue of Pepsi-Cola. More girls in dresses smiling beside shell-shocked boys intent on making the night count in a way that both thrilled and terrified them.

Outside the Town Clerk’s Office he leaned against the glassed floodplain map and stayed there until darkness fell totally and light from the church hall shone up.

In the pocket of his jeans was the invitation Misty had delivered, his impromptu promise to attend a regret that stuck like a lump in his throat as the day neared.

He carried a small box, inside a snow globe he had seen in the window of a craft store as he postered the hamlet of Wellbray Creek. Inside the globe was a miniature snow-washed town so delicate and detailed Patch took to staring at it each night as he lay down to sleep. It had cost him a dollar. He lamented the waste.

In a cluster by the door Chuck’s group passed around a small bottle of liquor. Inside streamers hung from rafters and neon balloons floated up toward a glitter ball that ricocheted chinks of light.

Groups of girls danced, their feet moving in unison, and right then he wondered just what he had missed. And what Grace would miss.

Patch had almost made it through the crowd when the box was snatched from his hands.

He heard laughter. Talk about his clothes, his old sneakers, the length of his pants. He tried to move forward but was blocked, tried to head back out but was shoved to the ground.

And for the coldest moment he felt his eye patch tugged from him.

That was when the laughter died, and maybe something in the way he looked up at them finally stopped it, and someone tossed it back to him. He quickly looped it over his head and pulled it into place.

And then the box was thrown toward him.

Patch heard the glass shatter as it hit the ground.

He stayed there kneeling as they left him.

Right then he longed to be back in the darkness.

Beside her.

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