Free Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff Page A

on me, hugging me around the neck and pressing her face into the top of my shoulder.
    I laugh because I can’t help it. We wrestle together, rolling around until I’m flat on my stomach with the comforter wrapped around my legs and the sheets in a mess on the floor.
    Ariel is lying flopped across my back. “When you get dressed, you should wear your big boots,” she says, playing with my hair.
    “Is that right?”
    She nods and flips over so she’s staring up at the ceiling, still holding on to my hair. “We need you to look menacing.”
    “Ow, don’t pull. What are you talking about, menacing?”
    She thumps down next to me and pushes her face close to mine. “So when you walk me and Pinky to school, no one will come and snatch us.”
    I have a drowsy feeling that my mom has put this idea into her head. It’s not the kind of thing Ariel would come up with on her own, and she doesn’t even look particularly worried about it, but then, Ariel never looks worried about anything.
    We lie side by side, staring past each other. I think I see Lillian watching from the closet, but when I turn my head, she’s gone. Morning is the only time when Lillian is really truly ghostly. Practically nonexistent.
    “You have to get up,” Ariel says into the silence. “Pinky’s almost here.”
    “That’s right, Hannah.” The voice that comes drifting out of the closet is a ghost voice, the way Lillian in the morning is always a ghost Lillian; the sun shines through her, making her seem pale and faraway. “You just need to figure out how to look menacing.”
    I lie transfixed, staring into the closet like a bird staring helplessly at a snake.
    “Get up,” Ariel says again, pulling at my arm. “Or we’re going to be late.”
    “I am. I will.” The way I say it is just a little off, not bright enough somehow, and I take a deep breath, trying to channel Old Hannah, who always had an easy laugh and something whimsical to say. “I was just watching how the sun looks on the wall. When you squint, it looks like a window to a secret yellow place—like a fairyland,” I say, shooting Lillian a dark look, even though I can barely see her anymore.
    Ariel lets me go, turning to see. “Really?”
    “Yeah, try it.”
    She lies with her cheek resting between my shoulder blades. “It does,” she says, and the tone of her voice sounds like she’s humoring me, but it doesn’t matter. The weight of her head is sort of nice, and for a second, it’s just the two of us, lying there together, looking at that bright yellow square.
    When I come downstairs ten minutes later, Decker is sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through the mail.
    “What are you doing still home?” I ask, taking down a bowl and a box of cereal. We have five kinds, but three of them are cornflakes.
    “Money day,” he says, which means he’ll spend most of today driving around in his truck with the air conditioner on, harassing contractors to pay him.
    As I pour myself some shredded wheat, he gives me a long, doubtful look but doesn’t say anything. I’m wearing a sleeveless minidress made out of a heavy-metal T-shirt from the thrift store, which is the most menacing thing I own. The dress is black, with slayer angled across the front in pointy silver-glitter letters. It would probably be more menacing if the scalloped trim around the neckline and the armholes weren’t pink. Decker just looks at me, and I can’t tell if his fixed stare is because of the outfit or something else. His eyes are too serious. If it were the outfit, he’d just say something.
    “What?” I ask, trying to sound unconcerned, like he’s not freaking me out.
    Decker shrugs and shakes his head. He’s picking at his arm, touching his four-color sleeve tattoo. “Nothing. Just you be careful out there, okay?” Then he pushes back his chair. “I’ll take off pretty soon here, get back maybe around two. Three at the latest.”
    The way he says all this has a false easiness to it,