“Go for it.” He sounded like a man facing a firing squad. The hair meant something to him. Freedom? Safety? A disguise?
“Let me guess—nobody recognizes you with the long hair and the beard?”
He gave a soft, bitter little laugh. “There’s nothing worse than being famous in a small town. For years, I couldn’t go in the hardware store without ten old guys giving me the evil eye, whispering behind my back about the hoax me and Jeremy pulled on the whole state. I just wanted to be a nobody again.”
“Wait, a hoax? Are you kidding?”
“A lot of people don’t want to believe two kids could survive in the woods that long. Doesn’t help that I can’t remember how we did it, and Jeremy skipped town three days after they found us.”
She ran her comb through his hair again, snipping more length away.
“It must have been hard going through that without Jeremy. I mean, facing all those dirty looks alone.”
“It wasn’t fun,” he said. She imagined that was a massive understatement.
“Jeremy says he had a good reason for staying away. Maybe he did?”
“Maybe. It would just be nice if he’d tell me what that reason was.”
“Yeah, he is kind of annoyingly cryptic.”
“Never used to be like that. He’d tell me everything.”
“What was he like back then?”
“You would not have guessed ‘savior of missing girls’ would be his career path.”
“You mean the guy who made jack-off jokes to his English teacher?”
“All day, every day. Never a dull moment with him. He called our vice principal ‘Il Duce’ to his face. He stole that from Gilmore Girls.”
“Jeremy watched Gilmore Girls?”
“We both watched Gilmore Girls. I liked Rory. He liked Lorelai.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me about him?” She took off another two inches. The hair fell in golden clumps onto the dark wood floor.
“People still talk about us like we’re a team. The news called us ‘The West Virginia Lost Boys.’ Plural. I guess I thought we were a team too. Guess not.”
Emilie was starting to think the only thing sadder than a lost boy was a lost man.
“The West Virginia Lost Boys sounds like a killer bluegrass band.” Emilie went back to work, combing and snipping, combing and snipping. “If you want to know what I think, and I admit you probably don’t…I don’t think you ever hated Jeremy. You, you know…you missed him.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
“Don’t tell me what?”
Jeremy appeared in the doorway. Emilie saw Rafe eye him from under the curtain of his wet hair.
“That we know you’re eavesdropping,” Rafe said.
In what was clearly faux outrage, Jeremy said, “I was just coming to ask if you wanted me to put your gear in my car? You know, on the very slim off-chance you go with us tomorrow.”
“He’s sarcastic,” Emilie whispered.
Rafe whispered back. “You noticed?”
“You want me to pack your gear up or not? I’d like to get going before it’s midnight.”
“Sure. It’s—”
“I can find it,” he said and disappeared from the doorway.
“He was definitely eavesdropping,” Emilie said.
“I knew it. You almost done?”
“Two more seconds.”
She set her comb and scissors down, then ran her fingers through his hair. She’d cut it to his ears. Shorter but not shorn. Even damp, it had a soft wave.
“Good enough? I hope?”
He stood up and looked in the mirror for a long time while Emilie cleared up clippings off the floor with a towel, then retrieved Fritz from the bathtub before he made a nest out of Rafe’s hair.
“Not bad,” he finally said. She sagged with relief.
“Oh, thank God. I was kind of out of practice.”
