Free Six by Karen Tayleur Page A

held out his hand to me. So I placed my hand in his, ready to follow him wherever he led me. He squeezed my hand just the tiniest bit — afterwards I would wonder if I had imagined it — then he laughed and pointed to the ball.
    ‘Oh,’ I said. I handed him the football and he left, but I knew, even then, that we were meant to be together.
    I didn’t tell anyone, not even Sarah, because technically I was still going out with Kiel Montgomery at the time and had been for the previous four months. But I filed it away as something to think about. And that’s all I could do. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nico and his beautiful smile and the warmth from his hand as it held on to mine.
    I dumped Kiel soon after. I know other girls would think that dumping mid summer break would not be a good idea. Kiel had a car and he was handy when I wanted to go out at night, but it just seemed wrong to be making out with Kiel while all I could think about was Nico.
    And then there was that awful day at The Woods. Even while I was in shock about what was going on, a small part of me was checking Nico out. I could feel the warmth coming off him, pulsing in waves towards me, and I wanted him to hold my hand again. The urge to touch him was so strong that I had to move away from him.
    Life is full of rules. A lot of them are written down, and if you break them you can end up in big trouble. The other rules, the unwritten ones, sometimes don’t make sense to me. That day I wanted to tell Nico what I was feeling. But of course I didn’t. I mean, the timing was all wrong. There was definitely a bigger agenda going on there, but still…
    I don’t know why it’s wrong to tell people how you really feel, what you really think. We waste so much time not saying what we mean and saying other things that don’t really matter. So I waited to tell him what I thought. And I did tell him, eventually.
    No one talks about the girl from The Woods. Not Sarah or Nico or Finn. I don’t really talk to Virginia, but I’m sure she wouldn’t talk about that day either if she had the chance. It’s like The Woods girl never existed. Sometimes I think it’s just something that happened in one of my bad dreams. Then I’ll go online and check out the news reports about her and the Facebook tribute page just to convince myself that it was real. If I ever doubt it, I just have to look at Nico and see the black spot that sits on his heart to know that he thinks about her, too.
    Who killed her? That’s what I want to know. Who killed her and why? Was it her boyfriend? Was it her best friend? Was it a random stranger that liked the look of her hair?
    She had a name — Marley. She had a name and family and friends who miss her. She was a girl just like me. I still can’t believe we left her in The Woods. You wouldn’t even do that to a dog.

    I MISS MY DOG Hootie. I used to tell him everything. Late at night he would scratch at the door and I’d let him in. Sometimes he’d even get on my bed, and I would stroke his smooth black head and long silky ears and he’d listen while I’d waffle on. He never judged me or told me to grow up. He never pretended to listen while he was really wondering what I could do for him.
    It’s kind of nice that he still comes to visit. He keeps the shadows away. Which is good, because I know I’m not ready to meet them yet.

11
SARAH
    Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie
    When the pie was open
    the birds began to sing
    Wasn’t that
    a dainty dish
    to set before
    the King?

    I DIDN’T KNOW Nico that well before he got together with Poppy. Our paths hadn’t crossed much at school; he stayed in his world of sport and I stayed in my world of study. The one good thing he had going for him was that he was Finn’s best friend.
    Considering the boys that Poppy had previously fallen for, Nico was a big surprise. Poppy’s exes (or PX’s as I tagged them) had a uniform broodiness about them. Poppy loved love. She was always