Free At the Edge of Summer by Jessica Brockmole

café, sometimes I sketch the customers. Mostly tourists. They buy the sketches as a little remembrance of their trip.” He shrugged. “It’s not drawing what I want, but it buys my wine, my books, my coffee, new strings for my racket.” He touched his inside pocket. I wondered what else money bought.
    “You must do what you must do.” I tugged at the sides of my skirt. “I didn’t mean offense.”
    “I know.”
    “You startled me with that sketch. That’s all.” It sounded inane when said aloud. What was there to be startled about? Being noticed? Being pinned to the page? “I don’t look like that, you know.”
    Softly he said, “To me, you do.”
    He didn’t see me as an insubstantial girl, like the rest of the world, chipping as easily as china, wilting like a hothouse orchid. He wrote to me like an equal, he talked to me like a friend.
    “Luc,” I said, to remind him we were beyond the “monsieurs” and “mademoiselles.” “I didn’t know.”
    “I didn’t tell you.” Bede darted through the clearing, tongue wagging, and Luc looked away.
    “Did you want me to think you someone else?”
    “I remember your house in Scotland. It was filled with real wallpaper, not cobwebs or disrepair. Your father wore smart suits, your mother had silverware that matched. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my woes.”
    “You said you were exhausted. You said that you were weary with your life.” I took a step closer. “Can’t matching silverware be exhausting? Starched dresses and governesses? Empty dining tables?” Overhead, a rook screeched and I wrapped my arms around my chest. “Do you think it’s not exhausting to be a fifteen-year-old girl who nobody wants?”
    “I want you,” he said quickly, unthinkingly, and something skipped in my heart. He closed his eyes, just briefly. When he opened them again, they were clear. “I want you around.”
    I let my arms drop.
    “Would you like to come sit down?” he asked, almost shyly. “I’ll share my oranges.”
    “We won’t argue again, will we?”
    There was a little flash of a smile. “Only if you won’t try to run away again. If you do, I might start an argument to give you an opportunity to come back and shout at me.”
    “Monsieur…Luc…it is a deal.” I held out my hand.
    He hesitated for a handful of breaths. But finally he stepped closer and he took my hand. His was warm, rough, and sticky from the oranges. It was smudged red on the knuckles from his sketching. His bare wrist was sprinkled with freckles. It felt nice.
    He noticed me noticing. “Right,” he said. “It’s a deal.” He shook my hand vigorously, then loosened his grip. As he pulled his hand back, he unrolled his cuffs and tugged them back down over his wrists.
    “Right,” I repeated softly.
    He cleared his throat. “Anyway, this isn’t a place to fight.” He tipped his head up, to the skim of sunlight falling through the trees. “It’s a place of refuge.”
    The clearing was as still as a cathedral. “It is.”
    “This was always one of my favorite places to come as a boy when Maman and Papa were arguing. I’d steal away with something from the kitchen and a stack of history books and hide out here until things quieted down.”
    “Did they fight often?”
    “As often as anyone, I suppose.” He went to where his coat lay spread beneath the tree. “Maman would shout that Papa wasn’t paying her enough attention, Papa would shout back that she clung too close, like a vine of ivy—that’s exactly what he used to say—then Maman would declare that she’d have to tattoo her breasts like a Samoan islander before he’d notice her.”
    I wonder if he’d realized he’d used the word “breast.” I pushed on my suddenly hot cheeks with one hand. “Astonishing.”
    “Of course, the rows only lasted as long as that. They’d shout, they’d cry, but then Papa would come to sit next to Maman on the sofa and everything would be forgotten. He always said