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My eyelids are getting heavy. I force them open.

Heather reaches for the door.

“Where are you taking me?”

“I told you. Home.” She closes the door.

Through the window, I watch her walk around the front of the car.

Almost a year. I try to hold onto that. Almost a year, and I never saw her outside the classroom.

Heather gets into the driver’s seat and puts my phone in the center console. Close enough to see. Too far to reach before she could stop me.

She starts the car.

I turn my head toward her. “Why Oliver?”

Her hand pauses on the gearshift. Then she looks at me. “Because that’s who you are.”

I want to tell her she’s wrong. I want to tell her again that my name is Nathaniel Price. I know my name. I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

Heather reaches over and brushes her fingers through my hair. “Save your voice, sweetheart. Tomorrow, I’ll teach you what to answer to.”

The parking lot lights smear across the window when the car begins to move. I try to count them. I lose track at four.

CHAPTER 14

Heather

Oliver looks different in bed.

I’ve spent so long watching him in places he didn’t belong that seeing him exactly where I put him is strange.

He’s on his back in the middle of the green room, still deeply asleep. I already took his shoes off downstairs because they were dirty, but everything else is the same. Charcoal sweater, dark pants, belt, the white collar of his shirt showing underneath. His glasses are crooked from the trip upstairs, and his hair has fallen across his forehead. I’ve never seen him this messy.

I sit beside him and take off his glasses. His face changes without them. I’ve seen him remove them dozens of times, but always from across a room. Usually when he reads. He’ll fold them and set them beside whatever book he’s holding, rub the bridge of his nose once, then look down at the page.

I fold the arms and put them on the nightstand before running my fingers through his hair. It’s softer than I expected. Not as soft as Jamie’s, but Jamie spends far more time on his. Oliver’s feels like he washes it with whatever shampoo is closest and considers the matter finished. I’ll fix that.

I push it back from his forehead and study him for a moment. He doesn’t look severe when he’s unconscious. The line between his eyebrows is still there, but his mouth has relaxed. I touch the corner of it with my thumb.

“You were a lot of trouble.”

I move my hand down the front of his throat to the collar of his sweater. I’ve watched this sweater from the fourth row. I’ve watched him push the sleeves up when the room was too warm and pull them down again before he left.

The sweater comes off with some work because Oliver is no help at all. I have to lift his shoulders and pull it over his head, then free one arm and the other. By the time I get it off, his hair is a mess again.

I toss the sweater over the chair. His head has tipped toward me. I fix his hair again before starting on the buttons of his shirt.

There are things you can learn about someone by watching them, but there are limits. Clothes hide a lot. Oliver’s shirts hide more than I expected. His chest is broader than it looks behind a lectern, with dark hair running down the center, and I flatten my hand against him.

His heart beats steadily beneath my palm.

I slide my hand across his chest, following the shape of him, and that’s when my fingers catch on something hard.

“Oh.”

A small silver bar goes through his left nipple. For a second I only stare at it. Then I laugh.