Free The Day I Killed James by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Todd’s voice behind her. Following her out. “Wait, Annie. Let me give you a lift home.”
    She waved him off without turning around.
    “Annie. I don’t think you should drive right now.”
    “I’m not driving. I just live right down there. In that trailer park right down the street there.” He pulled level with her. “I’m just going to walk home and get some sleep.”
    “At least let me walk with you, then.”
    “I’m fine, Todd. I’m sorry. I’m just not good company tonight.”
    “It’s late though, Annie, just let me walk with you. It’s safer if I walk with you.”
    But it wasn’t safe, not at all, and she knew it. If she opened the door of her trailer and he was right there with her. That would not be safe. She knew she might pull him in with her and lock the door behind them.
    As they crossed in front of the bank, Annie slammed her left shoulder hard against a wooden post holding up the building’s awning. Meant to walk right by it but misjudged and hit it hard and bounced off again. Stood feeling surprised and wounded, and Todd stopped. He came close and rubbed her shoulder gently.
    “You okay?”
    She purposely fell forward into his arms. Held him. Rested her head on his shoulder, close into the crook of his neck. And it must have startled him, because a second or two passed before he circled her with his arms.
    He lifted her chin and tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.
    “No, don’t,” she said.
    She leaned back against the post that had stopped them in the first place. And pulled him back with her, against her. Apparently surprising him again.
    “Just hold me,” she said.
    And he did, for a longish time. How long, she found herself unable to judge. His hands ran up and down her back, dipping a little too low each time, as if trying to sneak a border transgression past them both. But she had no intention of giving in to that. It would have been blissfully easy, but she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t.
    “I miss being held,” she said. “Being touched. I’m lonely. There. Now you know something about me that the other guys don’t.”
    “Come home with me,” he said.
    “I can’t.”
    “Okay, I’ll come home with you.”
    “No. I can’t.”
    She pulled away and headed for home again. More slowly and carefully.
    “You can’t tell me you don’t want to,” he called.
    She stopped, turned around. He looked lonely and small, standing on the dark sidewalk on Sunday night, alone. She felt sorry for him.
    See? She’d already done him some harm.
    “I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I said I wasn’t going to. Oh my God. Don’t you get it? I’m just trying to make everybody stay away. Just stay away.”
    She threw her hands up in frustration. Turned and walked steadily for home again.
    A few steps later he appeared at her right. On the street side, the way a gentleman is told to walk with a woman.
    “It’s still safer if I walk you,” he said.
    She took his hand and held it as they walked. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt as if things were maybe okay. Or at least could be.
    At the door of her trailer she kissed his cheek and did not invite him in, and he left without comment.
             
    Sometime later that night, she was startled by a knock at the door. Her muscles jumped, spasmed the way they might in a dream about falling. She squeezed her eyes shut. The sweet thoughts of Todd, of anybody, a body, a touch, evaporated in the sure knowledge that all of those things lurked in dangerous proximity.
    “Don’t do this, Todd,” she said. Quietly and out loud. “I had so much respect for you because you didn’t do this. Don’t screw it up now.”
    Another knock. But this time she was prepared.
    She pulled on a robe, made her way through the dark hall without stubbing her toes, rested her hands on the door latch, and squeezed her eyes shut one more time.
    She swung the door wide.
    There on her dim porch, half illuminated by the corner