The Anatomical Shape of a Heart by Jenn Bennett

Author:Jenn Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250066466
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

17

As I walked under the arch, I glanced up at the camera and felt his fingers slide around mine. “Hi,” he said in a softer voice. God, he smelled nice, all woodsy and clean.

Someone yelled out from behind the house. “Keep your pants on,” he called back. Up-tempo guitar-and-drum music grew louder as we walked side by side down a stone path between his house and a crazy high wooden privacy fence. Tree branches from the neighbor’s yard curved over the fence to create a shaded green canopy, and the farther back we went, the darker and more heavily wooded it became.

There were zero trees on my block. In fact, about two yards of dirt and broken cement patio sat between the back of my house and the one behind it.

But not the Vincents’.

Within the castled defense of their soaring privacy wall, a series of terraced decks rose from the wooded property, separating Jack’s house from those of the surrounding neighbors. We stood on the most expansive deck, which started at the back door and fanned out to other, smaller decks—one behind a waist-high stone wall and another that sat behind a small guesthouse in the corner. Modern stairs zigzagged to a fourth, loftlike deck above us, where a bridge led to a door on the second story.

“Is M. C. Escher your architect?” I asked.

“My dad built all this when he won the first election.”

“Are there cameras back here, too?”

“Only over the back door,” he said. “But the house is off-limits tonight. Surprise—my dad doesn’t want unsupervised party guests trampling his polished wood floors. Though I don’t spend a ton of time in the house anymore. I moved into the guesthouse last year.” He gestured toward the small building in the corner of the yard. “My parents used to have people stay over a lot, but not anymore.”

Before the conversation got too sad, I said, “The guesthouse is private, which is cool. And now I see how you’re sneaking out for your midnight expeditions. Except for the cameras.”

“Willy taught me some tricks with those.”

“Panhandler Will?”

Jack grinned. “He’s sharper than you’d think.”

We strolled beneath the stairs. A dozen or so people were lounging around the main deck. A couple of towheaded boys out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad appeared to be divvying up the contents of a flask into several plastic cups on a long table crammed with food and soda. A guy with a Mohawk was hanging up a white sheet on the wall of the guesthouse, and another was setting up a digital projector.

There were only three other girls. One of them was piggybacking on Jack’s friend Andy. He rushed toward us and tilted back to drop her onto her feet. She landed with a breathless laugh.

“Hi, again,” Andy said, grinning as the girl he’d been carrying ducked into the crook of his arm. A very familiar girl with asymmetrically cut hair streaked purple and pink.

Sierra.

“Oh, wait. I know you. It’s her?” she said to Jack. And because of the fairylike pitch of her voice, I couldn’t tell if her words were condescending.

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